As the only locally born athlete selected as a potential Olympic medal winner for Singapore in the 2012 London Olympics, Jasmine Ser is determined to bring back an Olympic medal for Singapore, even if it means sacrificing her academic goals.
“I feel I have a duty to Singaporeans and to myself to deliver the (Olympic) medal,” Ser said.
Ser, 20, is one of six athletes selected by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports as potential Olympic medal winners for Singapore in the 2012 London Olympics under the Olympic pathway programme.
Singapore has not managed to win an Olympic medal since Tan Howe Liang’s silver medal in weightlifting in 1960, and MCYS hopes that athletes like Ser can break that long barren spell.
The second-year National University of Singapore finance student has been a prominent feature of the Singapore shooting scene ever since she won first gold medal in the 2007 Korat Southeast Asian Games.
Ser has continued to grow from strength to strength, winning two gold and two silver medals in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, but her progress has not always been smooth.
“If you asked me if why I didn’t go for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, I will say I wasn’t ready yet,” Ser said.
She did however, express confidence in her development over the past three years.
“I think that it is possible to qualify for the London Olympics if I perform to my best, and I believe that I will be able to deliver,” Ser said.
Ser’s improvement has been noted by Singapore Shooting Association President Chng Seng Mok.
“Jasmine has the necessary qualities and drive to succeed at the highest level. She is a perfectionist,” Chng said.
Ser’s development from fledging national shooter to potential Olympic medallist has however, become increasingly challenging, particularly as she now has to balance between increasing academic and sporting demands.
In her bid to excel in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the second-year finance major took a semester off to train full-time.
It was a move that paid off handsomely, as Ser not only picked up four medals, but set a new record in the 10 metres air rifle category.
Yet that success has also meant sacrificing Ser’s academic goals, as she attempts to bring back that perennially elusive Olympic medal.
“When I first came to NUS I told myself that I would not take lesser modules or take time off school. But it is impossible to do so,” Ser said.
Ser’s training schedule is jam-packed – she has to leave for training at Safra Yishun immediately after her classes at NUS and on her free days she trains for nearly twelve hours straight.
“Right now I am doing well in shooting, and to continue to do well I have to devote a large amount of time to training every day, and the rest of time is left for my studies,” Ser said.
Ser will have to put in more hours and effort into her training as the 2012 Olympics draw near, especially with the arrival of Russian coach Kirill Ivanov in January.
Ivanov has high expectations of Ser, and is setting high standards for her to help her achieve her Olympic medal dream.
“The first step she needs to take is to score 398 to 399 (out of 400) consistently,” Ivanov said.
While Ser has managed a personal best of 399 in local competitions, she will also have to undergo mental training designed to help her cope with the additional pressure in the international arena.
“It'll be more difficult to achieve this in international competitions when the pressure is greater,” Ivanov said.
Ivanov’s training methods and high expectations have raised the pressure on Ser.
“Since I have started working with Ivanov, I feel that there is no margin for error,” Ser said.
Such a taxing training and academic schedule means that Ser hardly has a moment to herself.
“I envy my friends a lot because I don’t have a lot of free time,” she said.
With such a tight schedule, Ser said she is thankful for the support the university has given her in terms of reducing her academic workload and flexibility with assignment deadlines.
The business school has been very supportive, allowing Ser to take three modules instead of the stipulated minimum of four and allowed her a semester off to train for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
However, Ser thinks that NUS can do even more, such as building a shooting range, because there are some national shooters in NUS.
Currently, the NUS national shooters and air weapons club members train at HomeTeam NS club at Bukit Batok, which is relatively near to NUS.
The travelling time however, makes it inconvenient for the shooters to shuttle back and forth from campus.
“While there is a shooting range at Nanyang Technological University, that range is pretty small, and I believe that NUS should have its own range,” Ser said.
“It would be ideal if we could get everyone here in NUS to train together. Even most secondary schools have a range, under a scheme to have a rifle range in every secondary school renovated or constructed after 2000.”
Ser’s call for developing shooting infrastructure has been echoed by Singapore Shooting Association general manager Lim Keng Miaw.
“To move to the next level, we need the infrastructure,” Lim said.
Ser notes that since she started shooting in 2008, “nothing much has changed” on the national level in terms of shooting infrastructure.
However, she said she is optimistic about the forthcoming integrated national shooting range and is “certain that it will be coming up in five years time.”
The need to improve infrastructure is critical, as the emergence of shooters like Ser has attracted many more students to the sport, and shooting has become increasingly successful at the regional level.
“For the national shooters we only have 16 lanes (at Safra Yishun), and with the increase in interest in shooting, there are not enough lanes,” Ser said.
At the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the national shooters won 14 out of the 31 medals Singapore picked up at the competition illustrating the increasing prominence of the sport.
In recent years, most of Singapore’s sporting talent has come from imported foreign talent, particularly in sports such as swimming with the emergence of Tao Li and the Chinese-born national table tennis team.
In contrast, only one member of the shooting national team that won a total of 30 medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2009 SEA Games was foreign talent: China-born Gai Bin.
Singapore shooting association’s vice-president Lim Kim Lye told The Straits Times that the sport hopes to develop more local talent like Ser, instead of relying on imported talent.
“We believe we can develop local talent, it's the way to go,” said Lim.
Shooting’s focus on local talent is often seen as an alternative to the Singapore Sports Council’s foreign talent scheme, which has been heavily criticised even when imported talent have proven to be successful at the highest level.
“Like swimming, (shooting) has not depended much on foreign talent. Stars are mostly local-bred and the result of a successful push to popularise the sport in schools”, a Straits Times feature on the sport said.
However, Ser was adamant that both home-grown and imported talents deserve equal recognition and support from Singaporeans, and that Singaporeans should be proud of both imported and home-grown talent.
“As you can see right, ten years ago this sort of thing would not be possible in Singapore (sic). There is no Jasmine Ser or Tao Li,” she said, referring to the emergence of young sporting talent in recent years.
Ser also acknowledged that while it would be ideal for locally born athletes to represent Singapore, imported talents are still proud to represent Singapore because of the opportunities and support they have been given.
“I think that I am just lucky that I am born in Singapore and I represent my country. I feel really proud to represent Singapore because I am Singaporean.
“But as much as I feel that, I believe that people like Tao Li or the table tennis team do indeed feel proud to represent Singapore because they are grateful to us for developing them”, she said.
Ser stressed that Singaporeans should not be overly concerned where Singapore athletes are born but focus on the vast improvements the Singapore Sports Council has made in developing sporting talent.
“And I hope that everyone should give them equal recognition and applause as much as they would like to support local talent. I think that we have shown that it’s possible to develop world-class sporting talent in Singapore,” she concluded.
And it is the 2012 London Olympics on which Ser is focusing on to prove that world-class talent can be developed in Singapore, as she goes for selection trials in Sydney and Korea in March and April, respectively.
Ser’s willingness to sacrifice studies and endure a strenuous training program hints at a strong passion for shooting and a quest for perfection in a sport where accuracy and precision are prerequisites.
“In shooting, unlike football or netball, there is a maximum score. And you get a great sense of satisfaction when you manage to hit a bullseye and you want to hit the target again and again,” Ser said.
“In shooting, we can determine if the bullseye is a good one or a bad one. And we have a score of 10 to 10.9 for a perfect bullseye. So for me I want to hit a perfect bullseye and that is what drives me to train further.”
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