The Ministry of Education (MOE) cited views from coaching experts that training before the age of 10 is likely to result in burnout and early dropouts.

Similarly, local coaches were concerned that specialised training at 11 would lead to burnout and that children of that age may lack the motor skills for specialised sports training.

To put the issues in perspective, we need to distinguish between recreational and elite sports participation.

The main objective of recreational sports participation with children is to use sports as a platform to enhance the social, mental and physical development of the young. This category of sports participation need not be undertaken under highly structured training programmes like those offered by the Junior Sports Academies (JSAs).

Sports participation through the school's co-curricular activities and community-based programme would meet the needs for recreational sports participation.

The JSAs serve the purpose of elite sports participation and not recreational sports participation. To groom an athlete for elite sports requires identification of sporting talent at a young age and years of grooming for the athlete to achieve peak performance, usually between late teens and into the twenties.

Countries that are serious about sports achievement in the international scene have their own system of talent identification and sports development of elite athletes.

Some of these systems take a more passive approach, by allowing sporting talents to surface through school and community-based programmes and by providing strong support for youth and elite sports participation. Others, like China's, actively identify talents as young as five years of age and groom them through full-time sports institutes around the country.

The establishment of the Singapore Sports School (SSS) is a key milestone for talent development for 13- to 16-year-olds to support elite sports development in Singapore. And the JSAs complement the role of the SSS by identifying and developing talents at higher primary levels.

In my mind, a serious elite sport programme for the country cannot exist without the existence of schemes like the SSS and the JSAs. Such schemes should be further expanded and streamlined to include sporting talents who are even younger than 11 and those who have graduated from the SSS so that the entire roadmap of grooming world champions is complete.

I have been been involved in the teaching and research of exercise science for 18 years and do not share the concerns raised by the coaches about burnout and the readiness of 11-year-olds to undertake specialised sports training.

The occurrence of burnout in sports training is dependent on training load, opportunity to recover and demands of the sporting environment (for example, the competitive performance), not on age.

Burnout can occur to anyone - regardless of age - who trains harder than they can tolerate, does not follow a sensible work-rest ratio between training sessions and who are in a stressful environment.

Burnouts can be avoided if sound principles of exercise and sports science are adhered to. The concern about the lack of motor skills is also unfounded because only those with proven competency for the specific sport will be selected for the JSAs.

I believe that the JSAs are a significant strategic development for elite sport in Singapore. And the challenge for the MOE is to ensure that their instruments of talent identification is sensitive enough to pick the true talent, and that the programmes implemented at the JSAs are sound.

I urge everyone, especially the supporters of Sporting Singapore, to lend their support and give the JSAs a chance to work.

Associate Professor Lim Chin Leong

Exercise Physiologist