An ancient Chinese tale tells of a race among animals, with the sequence they finished determining the 12-year zodiac cycle’s order. First came the rat, then the ox, the tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

At the Sept 23-Oct 8 Asian Games in Hangzhou, Singapore’s 431-strong contingent will also be racing for honours. The Straits Times features 12 of them, each corresponding to one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. In the fourth profile of the series, Kimberly Kwek interviews gymnast Nadine Nathan.

How have you changed since making your Youth Olympic Games (YOG) debut in 2014?

The YOG as my first senior competition really lit a spark in me to continue pursuing all these major Games because I found that I really enjoyed competing.

As a gymnast then, it was more coaches and my parents pushing me to keep coming to training and do all this. But, over the years, I’ve found more personal motivation to continue and realised how much I actually love the sport.

You’re now the captain of the women’s team. Was it a role that came naturally to you?

Over the years I’ve learnt how to be a captain rather than always having natural abilities to be one because I can be quite introverted and a bit more quiet during training.

But I’ve learnt that to be a good captain you have to create a culture of helping each other out within the team and being the first one to do it.

There was a period when you thought you were done with gymnastics. What kept you going in the sport?

I didn’t qualify for the 2018 Commonwealth Games by a little bit so every time someone mentioned the next Games in Birmingham, I was always like, ‘It’s none of my business’.

When I was 15 or 16, I was probably planning on stopping at about 20 anyway.

I did stop in 2020 for a bit, but that was because I got injured. But I did find myself missing training and competing, and I wanted to leave without regrets and on my own terms.

What is the worst injury you’ve had?

The first one was after the YOG in 2014. I broke my ankle, and quite badly, so I had to go for surgery. It was a good two months before I could start walking again.

My mentally most straining injury was my 2019 injury (partially torn ligament in the left foot) right before the SEA Games.

I was training really hard before that and then for it to all crash down, mentally, it took a very big toll on me.

At that point, I felt a bit of burnout and overtrained.

So, although the physical pain might not have been as bad or as serious as my ankle injury, that was one of the toughest injuries to go through.

Do you ever have fears about carrying out certain skills or doing certain routines?

A lot of gym is actually very scary and it only looks effortless if you can make it look effortless, which is ultimately the point of a good routine.

Quite often we see gymnasts get mental blocks – you really want to do the skill, but sometimes there’s just that fear that you cannot bring yourself to do it.

For me, some skills are also scary because of injuries and past injuries that I’ve gotten.

Can you take us through your single hardest day of practice?  

When we talk about the single hardest practice, it’s usually when you’re tired, or something hurts a little bit. But you can still push through, so you’re trying to push through all this pain and you’re still trying to do the best that you can to get good routines and good use out of the training.

When you look in the mirror, what are you proudest of?

I’m very proud of how far I’ve come since childhood when I would have mini tantrums over training and scream and cry.

There was an instance of me holding a table and my parents pulling me to the gym when I was like four or five.

(The younger) me would be proud to see where I am today, the things that I’ve accomplished and how much I love gymnastics.

You’ve just completed a degree in psychology. What got you interested in in that field?

To some extent, my interest in psychology came from my interest in sports psychology. When I could train properly, I was fine. When I couldn’t train properly, I was super hard on myself.

I knew a lot of things in training were mental and I didn’t know why.

I thought that maybe studying it would help to start figuring some of these things out.

What changed for you? 

I used to blame myself for a lot of things if they went wrong during training. Now I recognise that maybe it’s just the day, maybe it’s a technique I need to correct, but I try to not put everything on to just me being stupid or my inability, talent-wise.

In what way do you feel you’re like your zodiac animal – the rabbit?

Growing up, I always really liked rabbits. When talking about how I’m like my animal: I’m quite bouncy when it comes to jumping, and I do like to jump around a lot.

Rabbits are also quite slow to warm up to people, which I find I am as well. Being introverted for the most part, I need to talk to you and get to know you before I start to warm up, but then I can get really crazy.

Factfile

Name: Nadine Nathan
Age: 23
Asian Games event: Women’s team
Achievements: Women’s individual all-around bronze, women’s team bronze (2015 SEA Games), women’s team silver (2017 SEA Games), women’s team bronze, women’s uneven bars bronze (2021 SEA Games)