Singapore tchoukball seeks to improve after narrowly retaining Asia-Pacific U-18 girls’ title

SINGAPORE – With a haul of one gold, three silver and two bronze medals at the July 19-21 Asia-Pacific Youth Tchoukball Championships in Malaysia, Singapore’s age-group teams continued to garner creditable results abroad.

However, the sport’s national body is looking to forge further ahead.

While Tchoukball Association of Singapore (TBAS) president Delane Lim believes the teams did well in the face of tougher competition at the Educity Sports Complex in Iskandar Puteri, Johor, he is seeking to raise the bar by employing technology and boosting the talent pipeline.

He said: “All the games this time round are very close. At the regional level, everyone’s standards have gone up, which means we also have to raise our levels or be better in our coaching technology.”

He added that TBAS is looking at acquiring ball-firing machines, similar to those used in football and tennis, to help the teams improve further. Such machines can launch balls at different speeds and trajectories to sharpen players’ reaction and control.

“We are studying this to be part of our training to help our players defend better,” said Lim.

He also emphasised the importance of the school pipeline to widen the talent pool, adding: “This is why we’ve been lobbying to include tchoukball in the National School Games and introducing it to primary schools.”

While Singapore’s Under-18 girls won the Asia-Pacific title for the third consecutive time on July 21, they certainly felt stiffer competition this time round.

They had to endure a nervy finish in the final before pipping Macau 28-27. At the 2023 World Youth Tchoukball Championships in Singapore, they had

beaten the same opponents 43-16.

Coach Angie Ng said: “It was definitely very intense right to the end, the skills for both teams were actually quite on par, Macau had four power shooters that we had a bit of a problem dealing with.

“I’m very thankful we won. At one point, I already thought we were gone, it was really a close fight. We only have six (players) that were from last year’s team, so half the team is new. This is a relatively young squad.”

Captain Claudia Tan admitted that it was “stressful”, adding: “This year, they (Macau) definitely made fewer mistakes, and their game play was quite good. They came out with different strategies also to make us run more, and made it slightly harder for us to defend.”

Singapore’s title came in the only category that was not contested by Chinese Taipei, who swept the other five age groups.

They defeated Malaysia 33-9 and 31-13 to win the Under-12 girls and boys’ events respectively, with Singapore earning the bronze for both. They also beat Singapore’s U-18 boys 50-37 and the Republic’s U-15 girls 37-35 for gold.

Singapore’s U-15 boys, who had beaten Chinese Taipei to clinch the world youth title in 2023, came close to repeating their victory. They forced a 41-41 draw in regulation time, but succumbed 48-44 in overtime.

Captain Keane Yap said the team were undone in the added period.

“The game was very stressful and I think during overtime we just lost composure, we started to panic because they were scoring and defending very well,” he said.

Despite the loss, U-15 boys’ coach Ivan Ng felt that his team had “exceeded his expectations”, saying: “I think that the boys did well, to give Chinese Taipei such a good fight, it’s really commendable.”

He said an injury to key player Javian Ng had contributed to their defeat. The 12-year-old was forced to retire after the third period as he felt worsening pain in his ankle.

Javian said: “I went back to training without it fully healing, because I didn’t want one small injury to affect my whole team. As I continued in the competition, it became worse.”

Next up is the seniors’ turn to show their mettle. They will be taking part in the July 26-28 Asia-Pacific Tchoukball Championships in Hong Kong, where the women’s team will be defending their title.