Reviews and Enhancements to Sports Excellence Awards to Support Elite Athletes' Training, Welfare and Long-term Development

14 Ms Valerie Lee asked the Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) how the Government reviews and enhances the Sports Excellence awards to ensure that they sufficiently support elite athletes' training, welfare and long-term development; and (b) whether adjustments are needed to better enable Singapore athletes to achieve sustained success and international recognition in world sports.

15 Mr Alex Yam asked the Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) whether the Ministry will engage the Singapore National Olympic Council to review the Major Games Award Programme (MAP) to consider recognising SEA Games Silver and Bronze medallists to motivate and retain emerging athletes; and (b) whether the Ministry can support alternative non-monetary or tiered forms of recognition beyond the MAP, taking into account the SEA Games' biennial nature and competitive standards.

20 Ms Elysa Chen asked the Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) what is the breakdown of funding allocated to national athletes competing in the SEA Games 2025 across different sports; and (b) how does this compare to funding levels over the past five years.

The Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (Mr David Neo): Mr Speaker, my response will address Question Nos 14, 15 and 20 raised by Ms Valerie Lee, Mr Alex Yam and Ms Elysa Chen in today's Order Paper together.

Our Team Singapore athletes have done well, as seen in the last few editions of the Olympics, Paralympics, Asian Games, Asian Para Games, and most recently, at the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in Thailand. We are all very proud of them.

The Government invests in a few areas to build up a strong High Performance Sport (HPS) system to nurture all our athletes to achieve their fullest sporting potential.

First, we have direct financial and programme support to athletes through our suite of Sport Excellence (spex) programmes, and we design such support to be bespoke and holistic, based on our athletes' needs during different stages of their sporting career. Today, we support more than 1,500 carded athletes across 55 sports, compared to 272 athletes across 14 sports when we first started spex in 1993. This is a 450% increase in the number of athletes supported and 350% increase in the number of sports supported. [Please refer to ​"Clarification by Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth", Official Report, 13 January 2026, Vol 96, Issue 13, Correction By Written Statement section.]

We routinely review and enhance our spex programmes. For example, in recent years, we introduced the spexPotential programme in 2024 to enhance support for younger athletes making the transition to higher levels of sporting success. Last year, we awarded our inaugural batch of spexEducation Undergraduate Scholarships. This provides greater assurance to our athletes' academic aspirations. We also introduced Central Provident Fund (CPF) top-ups for spexScholars, bolstering their finances as they focus single-mindedly on the pursuit of excellence in their sport.

Second, systemic investment in our HPS ecosystem. We invest in coaching development, sport science and sport medicine, and athlete life management to give our National Sports Associations (NSAs), coaches and athletes the competitive edge that they need.

The support that each athlete or sport receives is calibrated according to their needs, performance and potential to do well. The support is also reviewed annually to ensure adequacy and accountability, and we will continue to enhance them as needed.

Third, we will continue to invest in the hardware, through the new home of Team Singapore, which will bring together the Singapore Sports School (SSP) to Kallang and integrate all elements of the HPS ecosystem under one roof – sport science and sport medicine support, national training centres and sport administration.

To build a holistic HPS system, the Government recognises that recognition and rewards play a complementary role in making sure that our athletes feel supported and they can go the extra mile.

Sport Singapore (SportSG) administers the Singapore Sport Hall of Fame, which celebrates the exceptional achievements and contributions of Singapore's sporting heroes. The Singapore Sport Hall of Fame now includes a new category for sport leaders and recognises the achievements of athletes beyond medals, including contributions back to the sport and to the community.

But it takes a whole Singapore village to journey with, to support and to develop our athletes. We greatly appreciate efforts by the community and Singaporeans to step forward to recognise and to support our athletes in all forms.

One such example is the Major Games Award Programme (MAP). It is a private award scheme that is managed by the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) and funded by their sponsors. SNOC reviews the scheme periodically and decides on the categories of awarded medallists and the monetary rewards offered to each of them, in consultation with sponsors.

The MAP award structure also takes into account the level of competition and the frequency of the major games. The Olympic, Commonwealth and Asian Games, for example, they have more competitive fields, take place every four years, while SEA Games takes place every two. We will take to heart Mr Yam's suggestion, and request for it to be considered in their review. At the same time, we also encourage more corporates and sponsors to come forward to support our athletes and contribute to the MAP.

Beyond MAP, SNOC, the Singapore National Paralympic Council and the NSAs recognise our athletes' achievements in other ways, such as SNOC's annual Singapore Sports Awards, SNPC's Athletes Achievements Awards, and the different NSAs' awards nights and dinners.

The Government will continue to review our policies and programmes for our athletes and for the HPS ecosystem so that we can nurture every athlete to achieve their fullest sporting potential.

Mr Speaker: Acting Minister Neo, I just want to be clear your answer is in response to Question Nos 14, 15 and 20. Am I right?

Mr David Neo: Yes.

Mr Speaker: Ms Valerie Lee.

Ms Valerie Lee (Pasir Ris-Changi): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you, Acting Minister. I have two supplementary questions. The first one would be: beyond medal outcomes and the increased number of spex awardees, what indicators does the Ministry use to assess the effectiveness of the spex scheme in supporting athletes' welfare and long-term development? For example, are we asking the athletes themselves of the satisfaction levels of spex?

For the second one is, what formal mechanisms exist for athletes to provide feedback or raise welfare concerns and how does the Ministry ensure that these concerns are addressed objectively?

Mr David Neo: Sir, I thank the Member for her questions. In terms of assessing the outcomes, what we are after, ultimately, it is about improvements day after day, and the athletes' ability to reach their fullest potential. When it comes to that, medals are one measurement, but how the athletes perform on the field is another one. The athlete's holistic development as a person, as an athlete, the ability to give back to the sport and to contribute to the community – these are all the different ways in which we assess the effectiveness of our programmes.

Most importantly are the athletes themselves. Do they feel supported? Are they performing better? Are they becoming better people?

And when it comes to whether or not there is a feedback process, our HPS ecosystem, our coaches, our support staff work very closely with all our athletes. Come down to Kallang on any given day and you can see our athletes working together with all the different support staff and that provides one channel of feedback, the daily conversations.

Beyond that our athletes also work very closely through the different NSAs. We work closely with our NSA partners to get feedback from them. I regularly have conversations and lunches with our NSA presidents and the different staff to find out how our athletes are doing.

Beyond that, there are also formal structures like the Athletes Commission, which organises workshops, talks to allow our athletes to have a channel to feedback and let us know about the efficacy and the effectiveness of the programmes.

Ultimately, the whole HPS ecosystem is designed to support the athletes and to make sure that the athletes get the best support and the best way of doing so is to continue to maintain an open communication channel and take all our feedback from the athletes seriously so that they can feel well supported and achieve the best.

Mr Speaker: Mr Alex Yam.

Mr Alex Yam (Marsiling-Yew Tee): Mr Speaker, I thank the Minister for outlining the range of existing support schemes. Having served previously in NSAs, I think our athletes would be very happy to hear that a review will be undertaken.

I just have a very simple supplementary question. Could the Minister share with us what is a possible timeline by which SportSG will be working with SNOC on the review of cash incentives and recognition for our SEA Games medalists, especially those who are in silver and bronze categories?

Mr David Neo: Sir, I thank the Member for his question and also for his support for Team Singapore athletes. It is my understanding that SNOC has recently concluded the review. And I believe they should be ready to announce the updated Awards in due course.

Mr Speaker: Ms Elysa Chen.

Ms Elysa Chen (Bishan-Toa Payoh): I thank the Acting Minister for sharing the very good news that we are seeing more athletes supported, with younger athletes and as well as CPF top-ups. Just wanted to ask two supplementary questions.

First is whether the Ministry has assessed the effectiveness of current funding models in translating investment into medal outcomes, and if so, what adjustments are planned to better support athletes' competitive readiness for future regional tournaments?

Second, whether the Ministry has plans to expand the SportCares Bursary and financial support coverage for youths from underserved communities to access and represent Singapore at the national level in sports such as aquatics, football and athletics?

Mr David Neo: I thank the Member for her questions. Going by the last SEA Games, what we have observed is that our spex Scholars as well as our spex Potential recipients won half of our medals and almost nine out of 10 of every gold medal that was won, In the same way, our SSP students and alumni also accounted for about a third of our medals and almost half of our gold medals.

Going by some of these measures, but like I said, medal outcome is not just the only measurement, it is also about their performance. Holistically, looking at their measurements and the way our athletes performed, as well as how they have developed in character, we are quite confident that we are in the right direction, and we have been achieving very good results and outcomes.

On her second question about improving sport access, especially for children from lower-income families, last year we announced the School Sports Fiesta, which is one of those ways in which to broaden sport access to young children from all backgrounds. In this year's Committee of Supply, we will announce further initiatives and ways in which we are trying to make sure that sports is something that kids from all backgrounds can grow to love and be a part of and can benefit from.

Mr Speaker: I am going to squeeze in one more Parliamentary Question. Dr Charlene Chen.