29 year-old sports lawyer wins first SEA Games medal in her fifth SEA Games outing
PHOTO: CHERYL TAY, SPORTPLUS.SG
Encouraged by her officer parents to take up sport at a young age, Goh Chui Ling followed the footsteps of both her older sisters and got involved in Track & Field in secondary school.
Goh actually started in high jump first, then proceeded to sprints in junior college and university.
The 29-year-old sports lawyer was focused on sprints, mainly competing in events like the 400m and 400m hurdle events.
She had represented Singapore in four Southeast Asian (SEA) Games and two Asian Championships, even breaking the Singapore 40-year-old national record for the Women’s 4x400m event with Dipna Lim-Prasad, (T.) Piriyah and Shanti Pereira at the 2015 SEA Games held in Singapore.
PHOTO: CHERYL TAY, SPORTPLUS.SG
After retiring from sprinting in 2017, Chui Ling turned her attention to distance running. This was a tumultuous year for her as she struggled to balance work with training.
It took a toll on her health and she wasn’t able to sleep well or function well mentally, causing her to lose sight of her purpose and goals in life.
PHOTO: CHERYL TAY, SPORTPLUS.SG
It was distance running that gave her the stability and structure she needed to pull her life together and overcome this difficult season.
From initially being a way to relieve stress and cope with her insomnia, Chui Ling quickly became competitive in distance running and now holds the Singapore national records for the Women’s 2.4km, Women’s 5km Road and Women’s 10km Road as well.
PHOTO: CHERYL TAY, SPORTPLUS.SG
Currently based in Munich for her PhD, Chui Ling managed to qualify for a total of four events (800m, 1500m, 5,000m, 10,000m) at the 2021 SEA Games that were held in Hanoi, Vietnam in May 2022.
This was her fifth SEA Games outing and she scored her first ever medal at this biannual event, with a bronze in the 1,500m. Making a strategic decision to withdraw from the 5,000m, Chui Ling narrowly missed the podium with a fourth place in the 800m, but managed to snag the bronze in the 10,000m race.
PHOTO: CHERYL TAY, SPORTPLUS.SG
With two shiny new medals to add to her collection, this is her most successful SEA Games ever – and she doesn’t intend to stop here.
With eyes set on the next SEA Games in May 2023 and the Asian Games, Chui Ling believes that to Live Uplifted means to live with a healthy mind and body, and to live a life fully felt, fully experienced and fully processed, in order to be uplifted and uplift others.