Athletes of different abilities showcase strength through Hyrox’s adaptive division

SINGAPORE – When Dennard Lee began losing his vision because of cone-rod dystrophy about a decade ago, he was initially concerned about how he would get through each day.

As his eyesight deteriorated, he learnt to adapt to a different way of life while pausing on his sporting activities such as marathons and tennis.

Reflecting on that period, the 42-year-old said: “It was a turnaround. It was a time when I needed to reflect on myself, what I needed to do next and the basic necessities were much more important.”

Growing up, he had been diagnosed with lazy eye and relied on spectacles. A car accident in 2008 changed things further – he lost his vision in his left eye.

He then depended on his right eye, but his eyesight began to worsen about 10 years ago, when he was diagnosed with cone-rod dystrophy.

But support from organisations such as the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped helped him adjust while he was still working in a management role.

Losing his vision also reintroduced him to the idea of learning.

He said: “People may say, ‘you’re learning new things at this age’, and see it as quite a sad thing.

“But, for me, it was about a learning process. When I became visually impaired, I really started learning again.

“Before that, I got to a point where I was quite stagnant, there was not much to learn any more and I was lazy to learn also.

“But after I became visually impaired, I had to learn, I had to adapt because if not I cannot do anything and that’s when I got the motivation back again to relearn everything.”

As he got to know the visually impaired community, sport found its way back into his life.

He was introduced to soundball, a sport for the visually impaired. It is similar to tennis and played indoors using sponge balls that rattle when bounced so that they can be located by hearing.

He also toyed with the idea of running marathons again, but decided to give Hyrox a go when the opportunity arose through NCSF Uplift, a volunteer-led organisation which offers strength training for people with special needs.

Over the weekend, Lee was among 10,395 competitors who took part in the AIA Hyrox Singapore at the Singapore Expo, which attracted an audience of over 12,000.

He competed in the adaptive division, a category that was introduced to the Singapore line-up at the June event and features impairment divisions such as upper limb and short stature.

It is designed for inclusivity, with modified rules and equipment where necessary.

For Lee, the adjustments were minimal. He required a guide to run with him and help him to each station, but most workouts posed no issue.

Only the wall ball element – where participants have to throw a weighted ball up to strike the target – required modification, with Lee doing goblet squats instead of throwing the ball.

He had initially trained for wall ball, but during a simulation ahead of the actual event, he could not track the ball clearly and once it struck him in the face.

He said: “At least we tried, but if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t matter. To me, as long as I can finish the race, that’s the most important.”

Lee completed the men’s doubles category with Roystan Neo in 1hr 22min 48sec.

For hand-cyclist Prashant Arkal, Hyrox serves an entirely different purpose.

The 41-year-old Indian national completed his second Hyrox event in Singapore, using it as part of his training to strengthen his bid to qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympic Games. He finished his men’s solo race in 1:40:50.

Narrowly missing out on the Indian national team for Paris 2024 only fuelled his desire to compete at the quadrennial event.

Looking to build his strength and endurance, Arkal, who was born with polio, decided to take part in the Hyrox event in June at the suggestion of a fitness coach.

Over the last few months, his daily schedule has involved Hyrox training in the morning, his day job as a project manager at a software company and cycling training at night.

With an eye on the LA Games, Arkal moved back to India in October after living in Singapore for 14 years.

He was introduced to para-cycling in 2019. While working at national health technology agency Synapxe, he attended a meeting at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. A cyclist he met, who uses a wheelchair, invited him to join a hand-cycling training session.

He tried it, and was hooked.

Arkal said: “It felt like freedom. In the wheelchair, you can push hard but it’s very slow, it’s difficult to maintain the pace.

“But on the bike, when I was trying it, it was very smooth and fast. I felt freedom for the first time. I cried that day and I never looked back.”

During his time here, he did not just train for competition but also coached at the Para Cycling Federation of Singapore.

He said: “My intention was whatever I learn, I should give it back to the society and then to the athletes; that’s how I started coaching with the junior team.”

Being part of larger events like Hyrox, he added, plays a crucial role in raising visibility for persons with disabilities.

For athletes like Valerie Ng, having a space that recognises people of all abilities matters too.

Born prematurely, the 31-year-old has nystagmus. It is a condition which causes involuntary eye movement resulting in blurry or limited vision, and optic atrophy, a disorder which makes it difficult to view objects at close range.

Ng, who works at social enterprise Social Collider in a human resource and project management role, has been running half-marathons since 2019 and will be taking on her first marathon at the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon on Dec 7.

She said after clocking 2:15:05 in the women’s solo event: “It shows that even in the sports scene, they allow people of different abilities to join.

“They are very considerate in putting us in adaptive lanes so we won’t be lost in the crowds.”

Hyrox posed a new challenge for competitive swimmer Benson Tan, who has an intellectual disability.

But it was one that the 34-year-old, who had trained three times a week for it, enjoyed after finishing the race in 1:49:11 on Nov 29.

His trainer Ronald Deng, 44, said: “He did very well. He clocked 1:49, that’s his best timing because during simulation he was at 1:51 and maybe over two hours.”