S’pore men’s tchoukball team clinch first Asia Pacific C’ship title, women bag bronze

SINGAPORE – Hours after arriving in Taiwan for the Asia Pacific Tchoukball Championships on July 9, Singapore men’s national team captain Isaac Tan and his teammates encountered an unexpected setback.

They learnt that the opening two days of the three-day tournament, initially scheduled to start on July 10, would be suspended due to Typhoon Bavi, confining the team to their hotel during that period.

While Bavi did not make landfall in Taiwan, the government took precautions to prevent loss of life amid forecasts of almost 1m of rain in some areas.

Nearly all cities and counties across Taiwan declared July 11 as a typhoon holiday, closing any offices and schools that may have been open on the weekend, though in Taipei some restaurants and convenience stores remained open.

Tan said: “When we heard the news, we were definitely very heartbroken because it was something that we’d trained for and we really anticipated.

“But what we did was we made sure we rested well, we ate well, our coach managed to arrange some short physical training sessions for us with whatever facilities there were, whether it was the gym or the staircase at the hotel.”

The players also kept their competitive spirit alive by playing badminton, volleyball and tennis on a Nintendo Switch, while the coaching team focused on tournament preparation by analysing videos of their opponents.

When the competition resumed on July 12, teams also had to adapt to a change in format brought on by the disruption, with each match contested over two 10-minute periods instead of the usual three 15-minute periods.

Although world No. 2 Singapore started their campaign with a loss, falling 30-27 to Macau at the New Taipei Xinzhuang Gymnasium, they responded strongly with wins over South Korea (33-8), the Philippines (30-12) and Thailand (34-12) in the qualifying round to advance to the knockout stage.

In the semi-finals, they beat defending champions and world No. 1 Chinese Taipei 38-35 for the first time ever, before overcoming Hong Kong 28-19 in the final to clinch their first Asia Pacific Championship title.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s top-ranked women’s team also finished on the podium, snagging the bronze medal.

Tan, 27, said: “The feeling is still a bit surreal because it’s definitely something we’ve dreamt about for quite a long time and something we’ve been training towards and to achieve it is a very amazing feeling.

“We’re grateful – all the time spent in training, the effort and all this, we really pushed ourselves very hard and I’m very proud of the team.”

Men’s national coach Lin Sun Tang was overwhelmed by their victory and their historic win over Chinese Taipei, which he noted has been a goal since 2006, when the sport was formally introduced to Singapore.

The 34-year-old said: “We didn’t expect this, we just did our best and worked hard for it.

“We’ve always wanted to beat the world champions Chinese Taipei and we somehow finally did it.

“Moving on, we need to maintain our standard, which is even more challenging so we feel that we just need to push ourselves even harder now that we’ve got a title to hold.”

Their triumph is a timely boost ahead of the 2027 World Tchoukball Championships, which will take place in Singapore from June 30 to July 4.

“With it being on home ground, it’ll be different from the overseas competitions because our friends and family will actually be there to support us, so there’s a higher sense of pride,” said Tan.