40 years after falling in love at the SEA Games, this Singaporean couple will compete in the pool again

CNA

24-07-2025

One happy union, four children and four decades later, the pair – now both 57 – will compete at the World Aquatics Masters Championships in Singapore.
The competition includes swimming, water polo, diving, synchronised swimming and water polo events, and takes place from Jul 26 to Aug 22. This is in tandem with the ongoing World Aquatics Championships.
The Masters Championships features athletes aged 25 and above, with age groups for individual events in five-year bands, starting from 25-29. Entry times to qualify for swim events are based on one's age band.
STARTING YOUNG
The pair's journey to representing Singapore took different tangents.
After a near-drowning incident when she was about five, Ms Cheong's father made her pick up swimming.
Four years later, she represented Singapore in her first international meet, an ASEAN age-group competition.
Mr Koh on the other hand only got into water polo when in Secondary One, at about 13 years old. He was not a good swimmer at the time, but teammates at the Queenstown Water Polo club helped him catch up.
Meanwhile Ms Cheong was around that age when she went to her first major competition, facing the likes of Russia, Japan and Australia at a 1981 invitational in China.
With her swim career continuing to blossom, she competed at the Asian Games the next year, and had the 1984 Olympics in her sights.
But sickness struck: Ice cream from a street vendor in India left her battling hepatitis for a year and a half.
"I couldn't swim at that point of time because it was too dangerous. And then I picked up after that, and got ready for the '85 SEA Games."
"CUTEST IN THE TEAM"
Prior to the 1985 Games in Bangkok, Mr Koh knew of Ms Cheong – "she was like the cutest in the team" – though they'd never spoken.
And she was familiar with his teammates, through Asian Games and centralised training at Toa Payoh, but had no clue to who he was.
It was Mr Koh's seniors who brought them together during the Games.
He recalled the swimmers racing in their heats in the morning, before water polo matches took place in the afternoon. Then in the evenings, the water polo team would cheer the swim team on from the stands.
They started dating almost immediately after the Games.
Ms Cheong also called time on her career then. "I was in my first year of junior college, there was no way I could do JC and A-levels and that, so I had already decided it would be my last," she said.
"It was really difficult for me. After getting sick ... it was like from ground zero you've got to go back, it's super (difficult)."
Mr Koh went on to compete at the 1986 Asian Games. He was part of the team which clinched bronze - the last time Singapore's water polo team brought home an Asian medal - and was crowned Sports Boy of the Year.
As an undergraduate, he represented Sydney University in Australia's National Water Polo Championships and won a Blue Award for outstanding sporting achievements.
His last Asian Games was in 1994, the same year he married Ms Cheong.
EXCITEMENT AND TREPIDATION
After taking a break from sport for about a decade, Mr Koh participated in the 2008 World Aquatics Masters Championships in Perth.
He was subsequently elected as assistant secretary-general for water polo on the volunteer executive committee of the Singapore Swimming Association (now Singapore Aquatics), from 2008 to 2010.
"I did one term, and then I saw a lot of gaps in the club scene in Singapore," he recalled.
And so Mr Koh took on the role of running his alma mater, Queenstown Water Polo club, for eight years.
"I actually played competitively for Queenstown in the local scene until in my 50s," he added.
Ms Cheong also served as vice-president of swimming with the Singapore Swimming Association for a short period of time. But her relationship with her sport was slightly more complicated.
"It's more of a love-hate thing. I was burnt out already by the time I quit the sport, I really didn't want to touch the water so much, I didn't train by myself a lot. If I do, I'd just go and do a few laps," she said.
"But I would say that over the recent years, I have come to terms with my past. That 'hate' part is gone, I'm much more comfortable going back."
When the opportunity to take part in the Masters Championships in Singapore this year came up, the husband-and-wife duo decided to take the plunge.
"He was the instigator. He was the one talking to me about it," said Ms Cheong.
"How often does Singapore host this?" added Mr Koh. "I was pretty excited."
But it is also not without a sense of trepidation.
"A bit fearful in the sense that water polo is a fitness game, and we're all so out of shape. Getting the team together was a bit intimidating," said Mr Koh.
"But other than that, we always try to remind ourselves that we train a bit differently. Now, we don't do so much sprints because we're all old."
Ms Cheong will compete in two relays - the 4x50m freestyle and the 4x50m medley - with some former teammates.
"Three of us are old teammates ... We trained together, we were from the same club before. So it's more of for old times' sake," she said.
More than competing, the pair are looking forward to simply doing sport together again.
"It's nice to do things together. Even though we are in different venues, with different timings (for our events)," said Mr Koh.