Loh Kean Yew, Yu Mengyu take top honours at 2022 Singapore Sports Awards

National badminton player Loh Kean Yew was crowned Sportsman of the Year at the Singapore Sports Awards (SSA) 2022 on Thursday (Nov 10). 

This follows his rise to third place on the Badminton World Federation rankings on Monday. 

The SSA, organised by the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) and Sport Singapore (SportSG), and supported by the Tote Board, honoured the “most deserving individuals and teams in sports for the year 2021”.

Themed Braving the Odds, the awards made its return after a year of hiatus due to the pandemic. The last SSA was held in 2020 to recognise the sporting achievements of 2019.

Kean Yew was vying for the title of Sportsman of the Year alongside cuesports player Aloysius Yapp. 

The badminton player shared that he was happy to receive the recognition on top of his improved world rankings and will spend time with his family to celebrate the achievements.

“… I will need to focus again on the competition coming up. So (I will be) back to work after this,” he added.

Earning the title of Sportswoman of the Year was national table tennis player Yu Mengyu, who had recently retired. She was competing against fencing’s Amita Berthier and bowling’s Shayna Ng.

Mengyu was applauded by many in her Tokyo Olympics outing where she pushed through a knee injury before missing out on the bronze medal. 

She announced her retirement at the Singapore Table Tennis Association’s (STTA) Annual Awards Night in March, where she was recognised as the SSTA Star Player of the Year 2021.

She has since been appointed assistant coach for the STTA junior development squad for high potential athletes aged nine to 12 years old.

Kitefoiler Maximilian Maeder was awarded the Sportsboy of the Year and table tennis player Ser Lin Qian was crowned Sportsgirl of the Year.

Earlier in May this year, Maximilian came in first at the International Kiteboarding Association Kitefoiling Youth Under-21 World Championships which took place in Torregrande, Italy.

Lin Qian won the Under-15 girls’ singles title back in 2021 after beating Ireland’s Sophie Earley 3-2 in the final. She was then promoted from the intermediate squad to the national team in January of this year.

The Team of the Year award went to the Bowling Men’s Team at the 2021 IBF Super World Championships 2021. The team consists of Cheah Ray Han, Ong Wei Siong Darren, Neo Ze Min Jonovan and Jomond Chia Yu Sun.

The head coach of the national bowling team Jason Yeong-Nathan was also awarded the Coach of the Year title.

The ceremony was graced by Speaker of Parliament and President of the Singapore National Olympic Council Tan Chuan-Jin. In his address, he reminded the athletes to be proud of themselves for “rising above the challenges” in the past two years.

“Team Singapore, you are all deserving of recognition and you exemplify the best of the Singapore spirit,” he said.