The National Service (NS) is one of the founding bases along with multiculturalism and religious harmony in the unique social fabric of Singapore. All men of the modern generation have undergone the rituals of NS, including our best athletes. These athletes leave their schools as future sports champions in our nation, but very few of them really fulfill their potential to make Singapore proud of international competitions. What happened to these potential sports stars? Did NS hinder your passion and motivation to excel in your sport? Why do so few go on in their sports after school and NS? In our national quest for more expertise and 먹튀검증 glory, it may be time to review our NS policy and see how we can truly support and encourage the travel of these potential sports stars without necessarily compromising on national security.

The argument that NS is detrimental to the development and continuous travel of our budding athletes from school is not new. Affected athletes have struggled for years for the Department of Defense (MINDEF) to make special concessions and events to continue their training programs with their sports coaches. In most cases, MINDEF has adopted a general guideline for athletes to continue with their sports careers as long as their commitments to their respective NS units are not compromised. Basically, this means that athletes will have to count on the good thanks of their commanding officers to make special arrangements for them to continue training and at the same time carry out their training and duties with their units. A very difficult task at best. Any top-class athlete will tell you that being successful and being competitive with the rest of the world-class athletes, training twice a day, seven days a week with complete nutritional and physiological support is a common practice. NS training alone is already difficult and it simply is not possible to ask our athletes to spend time in NS and train at the same time. Faced with this situation, most of our athletes have no choice but to give up. Only a handful, with luck and determination, will be able to find the time to balance the commitments and training of NS so that it is possible to achieve a certain measure of success. Even these athletes do not compare well when competing with other athletes around the world. How can athletes in countries without mandatory NS just? Let's explore a little more.

In the Olympic Games, the usual forces that receive the most medals include countries such as China, the United States. USA, Russia, Australia, UK, Germany and to some extent South Korea and Japan. Do these countries have compulsory military service? The answer is no. A logical conclusion here is that their athletes have unobstructed paths to their sporting ambitions and their maximum achievement in sports. Of course, some may argue that these countries are large in terms of their population size. China has a population of 1.3 billion. Surely, from this lot of people, you can find masters of various sports. It is true. Now let’s explore countries with a population similar to Singapore and compare their sporting results.

A search on the Internet will reveal that the following countries have a population size comparable to Singapore (5 m); Norway (4.8 m), Ireland (4.5 m), Croatia (4.4 m), New Zealand (4.3 m), Finland (5.3 m) and Denmark (5.5 m). What surprises you when you see this list? These are all countries with well-known sports achievements despite their limited population size. The three aforementioned Scandinavian countries have won 350 gold medals in all the Olympic Games and are also well represented at the world's sporting events. Norway and Denmark have appeared in many world football cups. Finland is consistent in the production of professional NHL ice hockey players. In terms of Ireland and Croatia, they have won 8 and 3 Olympic gold medals respectively in their history. But let's not forget that these two countries are also powers in other sports. Ireland stands out in the World Cup in football, rugby and even golf. Croatia regularly produces the best water polo and handball teams on the world stage. Should we say more about New Zealand? In addition to the All Blacks, New Zealand has also produced 36 Olympic golds in its history. These countries did not have large population bases such as China and Russia, but nonetheless they have had constant success with maximum performance in sports.

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A search on the Internet will reveal that the following countries have a population size comparable to Singapore (5 m); Norway (4.8 m), Ireland (4.5 m), Croatia (4.4 m), New Zealand (4.3 m), Finland (5.3 m) and Denmark (5.5 m). What surprises you when you see this list? These are all countries with well-known sports achievements despite their limited population size.