Final Cohort Of SSP-AUT Students Graduate

Singapore Sports School's tie up with Auckland University of Technology to host the Diploma in Sports Management and Exercise Science for elite student-athletes ended on 13 January 2012 with the graduating ceremony of the final cohort of student-athletes.

Many champions have embarked on the programme since it started in 2006, among them, Singapore's Butterfly Queen Tao Li, who is the only Singaporean swimmer who has made it to the final line-up in a swimming event at the Olympic Games she achieved this at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Tao Li is bidding to better her fifth-place finish in the 100m Butterfly event at the 2012 London Olympic Games. At the 26th Southeast Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang last November, Tao Li won seven Gold medals.

Another illustrious AUT Diploma graduand is 2006 Laser 4.7 World Champion Victoria Chan, who is on the EW Barker Scholarship and pursuing her Bachelor of Science in Sports Science and Management at Nanyang Technological University.

From the Class of 2011, eight went to the 26th SEA Games five returned with medals, including Singapore swimming captain Amanda Lim, who won 4 Golds, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze medals. She also set a new SEA Games record in the 50m Freestyle, sealing her title as Southeast Asia's fastest woman.

Swimmer Vanessa Boon was the top graduand, with a Grade Point Average of 4.31 out of a total of 5.0 Amanda was the second-highest scorer with a GPA of 4.25. Amanda, who delivered the graduation speech on behalf of her course mates, had only words of praise for the programme for providing her the flexibility to balance sport and studies.

"It was tough for us elite-athletes, especially when we were always traveling overseas for competition and also trying to keep up with the academic workload. We really had to balance both our studies and sports... This course really helped us. Sports School staff and external staff supported us 100 per cent when we needed to go for training camps or competitions. Our classmates posted online recordings to help us keep up with our studies. The lecturers even took their personal time to hold make-up classes just to make sure we understood our lessons and not lag behind the other students. Only this course offered services like this. I dare say no other course can offer the same excellent services we had," said Amanda.

While the Sports School-AUT programme has completed its run, it was an excellent one as it helped to develop many Learned Champions With Character.

Elite student-athletes currently have the option of taking the customised Republic Polytechnic-Singapore Sports School Diploma in Sports and Leisure Management programme. Like the AUT Diploma programme, the RP-SSP DSLM programme is taught on campus at 1 Champions Way.