A SPORTING DREAM COME TRUE

Singaporean Saiyidah Aisyah is proof that dreams do come true if you work hard enough. The 28-year-old competitive rower, who took up the sport 12 years ago as a teen, faced an arduous road to the recent Rio Olympics in Brazil.

Doubters told her she would never make it, that her chances of qualifying for the Games in the niche sport were low. Her mother was not supportive of her sporting dream due to the constant training, so Saiyidah had to convince her to let her compete in Rio. She was also nancially strapped, having taken long-term no-pay leave from her day job as a student development officer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic to train full-time. To raise the money needed to get to the Olympics, she turned to crowdfunding.

Saiyidah shares with Her World how she overcame the odds to become the rst Singaporean rower to compete in the Olympics.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR OLYMPIC ASPIRATIONS.

“I had dreamt of becoming an Olympian since 2010, when I was a volunteer at the Youth Olympics. I’ve been told a number of times that I’m not good enough [for the Games], and being able to prove my doubters wrong is such a good feeling! The whole Olympic experience in Rio was really a dream come true for me.”

WHAT WAS YOUR LOWEST POINT ON THIS JOURNEY, AND HOW DID YOU OVERCOME IT TO BECOME WHO YOU ARE NOW?

“I was taking part in my last competitive race in Sydney before the Olympic qualifying races in South Korea, and I wasn’t performing very well. My coach told me then that if I continued to perform like that, I might as well not go to South Korea, [since I would surely lose]. I was really frustrated with myself and threw