Singapore’s Si To Jian Tong, 19, overcomes slump to win gold at Asian Junior and Cadet Fencing C’ships

SINGAPORE – When national fencer Si To Jian Tong woke up on Monday morning in Uzbekistan, reaching the Under-20 men’s individual epee final at the Asian Junior and Cadet Fencing Championships was not in his thoughts.

After all, the 19-year-old had been stuck in a rut and was feeling unmotivated following a poor run of form in 2022.

But form went out of the window and self-belief took over in Tashkent as Si To won the gold medal after overcoming a 9-5 deficit to defeat Kazakhstan’s Alexandr Fedotov 15-12 in the final.

En route to the title decider, he had beaten opponents from Uzbekistan, Georgia, Qatar, China and South Korea.

Si To said: “I built momentum along the way and in the final, when I was losing, for a brief second I let negative thoughts consume me because I could not see any chances in being able to make something happen.

“Then I told myself that I do not want to go home with regrets so I gave it a real push. I am really happy to be the champion especially because I know I worked so hard for this.”

The third-year Ngee Ann Polytechnic-Singapore Sports School business studies student had taken a gap year in 2022 to focus on full-time training. But the move did not pay immediate dividends as he failed to make a mark in individual competitions.

During his SEA Games debut in Vietnam last May, he was part of the epee team that won gold, but had to settle for a top-eight finish in the individual event. At the upcoming May 5-17 Games in Cambodia, he will take part in only the team competition as he had failed to qualify for the individual event.

“It was stressful to know that I had to delay national service enlistment and graduation and yet I was not showing the results,” said Si To. 

“For the past year, I felt like I was stuck and I was very unmotivated. No matter how hard I trained, I could not do well. And I’m not someone that was born with self-belief, so I was really struggling.

“My whole life has been about fencing and I was no longer getting a sense of fulfilment out of it. So, with the state of mind I was in, I did not expect this (gold) before today’s competition.”

Si To credits his teammates, Fencing Singapore and his coach Shim Jae-sung for helping him break out of his slump. Now, he is looking forward to his next event, the April 1-12 World Junior and Cadet Fencing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

He said: “This can motivate me to not give up and have more belief in myself. I hope this is the start of more victories to come in the year ahead.”

This was Singapore’s second gold medal in the competition.

On Sunday, the Under-17 men’s foil team of Sean Ho, 16, Du Yun Tao, 15, Samuel Robson, 16 and Loo Keyon, 17, had won the Republic’s first gold after overcoming top seeds Japan 45-25 in the final.