Saturday, January 2, 2010
9:25 AM
The Straits Times Athlete of the Year - Nominees
The annual Straits Times Athlete of the Year is back. This year's contenders are diverse - two males and three females from five different disciplines. There is a 15-year-old sailor and a greying 39-year-old footballer. There is a world-class table tennis star, a swimmer whose medals would fill a cupboard and an upcoming shooter who wears a shy grin but carries a rifle.

Below is a short introduction of the nominees:
Darren Choy (Sailing), 15
Darren spent the year knocking the wind out of sailors everywhere. At the inaugural Asian Youth Games in July, the teenager won nine of 11 races to win a near-perfect gold. Months later, he grabbed the Byte CII World Championship. Not bad for a kid who first got into a boat six years ago.

Aleksandar Duric (Football), 39
Duric should be lolling on a beach, sipping a Martini and enjoying his retirement, but the footballer probably thinks ageing is something that happens only to other people. The hitman continued to terrorise S-League defences, managed his body brilliantly, and emerged as the top scorer with Singapore Armed Forces FC for the third year running.

Feng Tianwei (Table Tennis), 23
All teams need leaders and Feng stood up and stepped forward. With Li Jiawei absent, Singapore needed Feng at her best and she was. She led the team to silvers at the World Team Cup and Asian Table Tennis Championships, she led them to gold at the SEA Games. She also led herself up the rankings, propelling herself to a career-high world No. 5 in November.

Quah Tingwen (Swimming), 17
It was supposed to be a year of textbooks not record books, but Ting Wen showed she could do both. Busy studying for her O levels, the elegant swimmer still found time to star at both the Asian Youth Games (four golds and the title of Most Valuable Female Player) and SEA Games (five golds, two silvers and a bronze and the title of Best Female Athlete). Did we mention the 14 national records?

Jasmine Ser (Shooting), 19
In the highly competitive and stressful world of 10m air rifle, Jasmine became the first Singaporean to reach a World Cup final in Changwon, South Korea. She did it again, in Beijing. Then, in a show of versatility, she won gold in her new event, the 50m three-rifle position, in the SEA Games. In a shoot-off no less.




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