Just do your best, Grace Fu tells Olympians
The Singapore team heading to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics in August are arguably the strongest ever, with medal prospects in three sports.
The female paddlers, headed by Feng Tianwei, have won a silver and two bronzes in the last two Olympics, while Joseph Schooling is bidding to be the first Singaporean to win an Olympic medal in the pool.
Shooter Jasmine Ser also previously told The New Paper that she is ready to step up and challenge for a medal, with podium places in major competitions such as the World Cup to show for.
But Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu is just expecting the Team Singapore athletes to give a "very good performance" in Brazil.
"We just hope that our athletes will do their best," said Fu, on the sidelines of her visit to the National Sailing Centre yesterday, when she interacted with Olympic-bound sailors such as Elizabeth Yin and Leonard Ong.
"It's not easy in the whole journey towards medalling at the Olympics. Medal or not, I think we all look forward to a very good performance (from them), and for them to fly our flag high in Rio."
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The Singapore National Olympic Council has given the nod to 21 athletes across six sports to compete in the Games, with more expected from athletics and swimming in the coming months.
Eight athletes will be competing in at least their second Olympics, with nine sailors forming almost half the contingent.
Among them is Laser Radial sailor Yin, who made her Olympic debut in London 2012, where she finished 24th among 41 sailors.
The 24-year-old said: "I just want to go out there and try to have fun, but I also definitely want to do better than how I did last time."
The 2009 Isaf Youth World Championships Laser Radial champion is back in Singapore for a few days, following a training stint in Weymouth in the United Kingdom.
Before that, she also trained in Rio, and will be leaving for the Brazilian city at the end of the month for her final preparations.
"It is quite different each time we go out to sail there, in terms of the wind and the current," Yin said.
"You'd never know what you are going to get when you're sailing in Rio, so it'd be quite interesting to see what happens (during the races).
"I am quite excited just thinking about it."
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