Red Sports interviews Clara Wong

Story by Les Tan/Red Sports

Last Saturday, the Red Sports Crew was down at the East Coast Park to soak in the buzz from the TAS Inter-Collegiate & Schools Biathlon Challenge and we did a story about it. You can read it here. After we posted the story, it came to our attention that Clara Wong, a Secondary Two student of MGS who won the individual gold in the Senior ‘C’ Girls category with a time of 35 min 30 sec, was even faster than the older girls (Senior ‘B’ and ‘A’ Girls).

So we were intrigued.

So we decided it was time for another Red Sports Interview. We also found out that it is her birthday tomorrow and so we decided to interview her mother Mrs Joanna Wong for this story instead of Clara.

Surprise and Happy Birthday, Clara!

Red Sports (RS): How long has Clara been participating in this sport?

Joanna Wong (JW): This is her second year. Her debut biathlon was last year in 2006.  She didn’t do well because she fell during the 5 km run and injured her hands and legs, but her swim timing was 11:31 min. During the Aquathlon Challenge 2006, she came in 4th (swim 750m and run 5 km) in a time of 35:43 min. She took part in the NUS Biathlon in February this year and she came in first in the Bi-Lite Category.

RS: What is it about the sport that she enjoys?

JW: She started swimming when she was in K2 and over the years she swam competitively. When she enrolled in MGS last year, I encouraged her to move to a second sport in school like synchronised swim or track & field but she chose to do cross-country. Surprisingly, she did well in her first race in last year’s Akira Swift Age Group Run (3.5km) coming in second. She told me that she enjoys cross-country because her team-mates are friendly & supportive and their team bonding is very strong and they encourage each other to run well for the school.
 
RS: Does she have any dreams of representing Singapore one day?

JW: She said that she’s still young, and there are a lot of things to pick up along the way.  Besides biathlons, she represented MGS in the Inter-School Cross Country recently and came in 7th in ‘C’ Division girls. Although she didn’t perform her Personal Best (15:02) she was very happy that her team clinched the ‘C’ Division Championship title this year.

RS: Does she have any phobia of swimming in the open sea? Was it scary the first time?

JW: She has no phobia of swimming in open sea, except that on the first occasion, she drank 2 mouthfuls of salt water! She told me that the sea here has poor visibility and the water is choppy.