The notion that too much involvement and time spent on sports will impact your studies holds no water.

Valerie Chia, the 16-year-old national sailor, has done extremely well and scored five distinctions for her O level examination.

She also won the Women's Byte World Championships held in Pattaya last April.

Last week, although playing second fiddle to Asian Games swimming sensation Tao Li and other well-known schoolmates, she managed a scoop, bagging the Singapore Sports School's Outstanding Student of the Year 2007 award.

Other Sports School students who had also done well included swimmer Sheena Soh and hurdler Vanessa Teo, who both scored eight distinctions.

National under-21 netballer Suhailah, who trained 10 times a week, juggled both sports and studies, and aced seven distinctions, a brilliant performance.

Although she found it tiring focusing on both these activities simultaneously, she nevertheless persevered, to come up tops.

Ninety per cent of the Sports School students performed well enough to qualify for polytechnic studies, with more than half going to junior colleges.

This is an attestation that sports and studies go hand in hand, if managed well.

Bennie Cheok