OVER THE HUMP

In winning her hard-earned gold medal at the 2013 SEA Games in Myanmar, cyclist Dinah Chan, a PE teacher, could go home with lessons about life for her students. While they may not be new, they will take on added poignance simply because she now has scars to go with her theories.

Lesson One: It ain’t over till it’s over. Yes, at one point, it did look like she — for all her commitment and hard work — would have to skip the SEA Games. Just three months before the competition, she was training at East Coast when she was hit by a car and thrown three metres away.

Thankfully, she landed on a grass patch and did not suffer any broken bones. However, she could not escape swollen lips, a swollen neck and bruised limbs and abrasions. She also had three damaged front teeth that had to be repaired with surgery. Staying in hospital affected her training schedule which was then moving into high gear. But she didn’t waver — and still harboured hope of a speedy recovery.

Lesson Two: Passion matters above all else. So eager was Dinah to get back on track that, on the fifth day after the accident, she was already pedalling away on her trainer at home. Her reason? Very simple. She missed the feeling of cycling.

Yes, it started with just that — the desire to do the task one loves (in this case cycling), not some grand quest for glory. “It’s only on hindsight that one talks about stuff like why it’s important not to give up or why we must be strong in the face of adversity. In reality, what gets us going first and foremost is what we like to do most,” she says.

Lesson Three: If you want something, you have to pay a price. Which was what Dinah showed when she took no-pay leave from her job at Broadrick Secondary School to prepare for the Games. That meant the stakes were high. The biomedical sciences graduate from the National University of Singapore had taken a move to pursue sporting success in a culture where financial rewards and career advancement matter.

Lesson Four: Your day will come, never mind the many obstacles. Having finished third at the SEA Games twice, Dinah was hopeful that she will have her breakthrough in 2013. That was before her accident as she had been showing glimpses of good form. Going into the Women’s 30km Time Trial event held at the outskirts of Naypyidaw, Myanmar, however, she had to not only banish negative thoughts related to the accident but also prove her worth against an opponent she had never beaten — Thailand’s Chanpeng Nontasin.

Yet this time, she — in a demonstration of true sporting grit — got out of Chanpeng’s shadow to win in 46 min 30.125 sec, well ahead of the Thai and Indonesia’s Yanthi Fuchianty. With her triumph, Dinah became just the fourth Singapore cyclist to win gold at the SEA Games after a long break, joining Masduki Besar (1971), Jamil Mohamed (1977) and Bernard Wong (1997). And to think she first picked up her sport as a child just by pedalling up and down the 10m-long HDB corridor outside her family’s flat — and on a neighbour’s bicycle too.