Chill and soft-spoken, but this skater girl is all stoked for the Games

Ms Tina Wan recalled the first time she asked her mother for a skateboard.

She had been skating with a Penny board after her PSLE and had wanted to upgrade to a standard skateboard after being encouraged by others to do so.

To her dismay, her mother said no, and she remembered crying for three hours.

Luckily, her older brother persuaded their mother, who eventually relented. It is a good thing she did – Ms Wan is proudly flying the Singapore flag in skateboarding at the SEA Games in Thailand from Dec 9 to 20.

The teenager, now 19 and a Year 2 student pursuing a diploma in integrated facility management at Temasek Polytechnic, will be pitting her skills against the region’s best in the Park event.

In it, competitors will have three runs of 45 seconds each, during which they will perform a sequence of tricks in a skate bowl.

Since being selected for the SEA Games about three months ago, Ms Wan, who is making her debut, has stepped up her training, from two to three times a week to about four times weekly.

She is modest about her goals for the Games. “I just really want to do my best and plan my runs and know that I did my best.”

Skateboarding was introduced to the SEA Games in 2019.

Ms Wan is the only female skateboarder representing Singapore at the Games. The other two skateboarders are skating veteran Farris Rahman, 31, and another Games debutante Felix Balzer, 11, both of whom are taking part in the Men’s Park event.

Ms Wan’s coach is Mr Ahmad Saiful, who is better known as Chris in the skating community. He has been coaching her for five to six years – first informally and then more formally as she participated in competitions.

The 40-year-old, who is also the coach for the Team SG skateboarders, said of his protege: “She’s a fast learner. She picks up tricks very fast.”

For Ms Wan, skateboarding gives her a sense of community. The encouragement she gets from other skaters has also helped her improve her skating skills.

She recalled that she used to skate alone at her void deck when she first started. One day, while skating, a food delivery rider she encountered told her that he used to skate and encouraged her to hone her skills at a skate park.

That led her to the Stadium Skate Park in Kallang, where she spent a year skating and learnt her craft.

Said Ms Wan: “When you are skating, people will actually come to you and give you advice, like, ‘Oh you should do this or you should go there.’

“I would make friends with everyone and we would skate together.”

At the encouragement of her friends, Ms Wan started taking part in competitions for fun and to gain experience. The first time she took part in a competition was in 2020 at Somerset Skate Park, where she was placed in the top five. A second competition landed her a top four spot.

“That was when I started thinking I could join competitions,” she said. “I get really nervous, but then it’s also fun and I want to push myself and do my best.”

This year, Ms Wan topped the Women’s Park and Street events at the National Skateboarding Championships 2025 and was the champion in the Women’s Park event at Skate Tour ASEAN 2025 competition in Penang in August. Her performance met the selection criteria for the SEA Games.

On myths and misconceptions of skaters, the soft-spoken, slim 1.6m-tall teen said: “For me, because I’m a girl, sometimes (people) will say that I shouldn’t do it because... girls are too fragile and it’s dangerous, like, you could get injured really easily.”

But she shrugs off the naysayers.

“I know everyone has their views. I accept it but I do not really get affected by it that much,” she said.

While skateboarders are still predominantly male, she has observed more girls picking up the sport.

“There are girl skaters influencing more younger girls to skate also,” she said, adding that she follows girl skateboarders on social media.

Ms Wan takes injuries in her stride – she had two bad falls in the past that resulted in concussions, even though she was wearing a helmet. Both times, she fell and hit her head when practising in a skate bowl. After the second fall, she went to a hospital to get herself checked.

She said: “I already know that injuries are part of skating, so it is definitely going to happen. It is just, like, you have to recover and then just continue.”

A middle child, Ms Wan has an older brother who plays water polo and is currently serving national service. Her sister is not as into sports.

Nevertheless, Ms Wan’s enthusiasm for her sport has inspired her mother, 54, to pick up skateboarding as a hobby.

“Now she understands it (my interest in skating) because she also skates,” said Ms Wan, who added that her family members are in Thailand to cheer her on.