SINGAPORE – Farhanna Farid has become a popular name in Singapore sport with several record-breaking deadlifts over the years, with her most recent success a 208kg effort as she won the Under-52kg open category at the Asian Classic Powerlifting Championships in Johor Bahru last December.
While powerlifting’s rise in popularity here has been fuelled by the achievements like Farhanna’s on the international stage, the community finds itself grappling with a formidable challenge: raising sufficient funds to sustain its growth and development.
Often, Farhanna and teammates like Chloe Tang, who claimed three sub-junior world records at the recent competition across the Causeway, compete on their own expenses. But their woes may soon be eased.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong announced a $20 million top-up for the One Team Singapore Fund (OTSF) – which provides dollar-for-dollar matching for donations towards national athletes – during his Budget speech in Parliament on Feb 16.
He will also extend it to the end of the 2027 financial year and broaden the scope of donations to cover athletes in emerging sports like pickleball, tchoukball and powerlifting. More details will be shared at a later date.
President of Powerlifting Singapore Clinton Lee said: “To hear our sport mentioned is a big boost to the community of over 400 powerlifters in Singapore. To date, we have been only able to support our athletes with equipment sponsorship.
“We’re excited by the news because we can now convince juniors especially that this is something they can invest their time in and look to compete in.”
He hopes to register the association as a charity organisation, so that it can tap on the OTSF.
Tchoukball Association of Singapore president Delane Lim said funding is “a significant challenge for newer sports like ours”. The body was registered as a national sports association (NSA) with charity status only last October.
He added: “Securing financial support from donors and sponsors can be a daunting task, especially when competing with more established sports for limited resources.
“We are extremely encouraged by the announcement and... look forward to further details of what level of financial support we might receive.
“For the younger players and their parents, they are also grateful that they will now be able to focus on representing Singapore, rather than having to self-fund to make their dreams come true.”
He said there are more than 2,000 active tchoukball players in Singapore and more funding can help to expand grassroots initiatives and outreach programmes for scouting and talent identification.
The women’s tchoukball team are currently ranked world No. 1. At last August’s world meet in Prague, Singapore’s men’s team finished third while the women’s team reached the quarter-finals.
Singapore Pickleball president Chong Siew Tan said there has been a surge in participation amongst the youths in the last five years.
The sport was previously positioned as being one played by senior citizens. He estimated there are around 5,500 pickleball players here.
He hopes to raise around $100,000 in the coming years to hire foreign expertise to help local players and build a permanent facility for training and staging local tournaments.
Currently, pickleball national players use various badminton courts around the country for training.
Chong said: “We have been building awareness at the grassroots level and only last year we started building a national team to send our players for competitions.
“We hope the popularity will become mainstream and hopefully we can develop the sport and get better facilities with more funding that can come through the OTSF.”
