Ng Zhe Nin's women's taijiquan combined title was Singapore's first medal of Dakar 2026 and its first Summer Youth Olympic gold since 2014. Behind it: a childhood goal, twice-daily training and three-time world champion Vera Tan as team manager.

Singapore's Ng Zhe Nin came to Dakar with one goal she had carried for years, and she left with the gold medal in the women's taijiquan combined. Her score of 18.713 on 3 November at the Dakar Expo Center gave Singapore its first medal of the 2026 Youth Olympic Games and its first gold credited to the country at a Summer Youth Olympic Games since Nanjing 2014.

The 16-year-old led from start to finish. She topped the standings after the two preliminary routines with 18.653, then won both parts of the final: 9.353 in taijishan (fan) in the morning and 9.360 in taijiquan later in the day. Chu Yu-En of Chinese Taipei took silver with 18.499 and Germany's Mia Zhuo bronze with 18.482.

Video: Olympic Games / YouTube

"Bigger stage"

Ng took up wushu at 10. At her first World Junior Wushu Championships in 2024 she won a gold and a silver, and this year in Tianjin she added two golds and a silver, including the girls' youth taijiquan and taijijian titles. After that first world junior success, she told Sport Singapore's ActiveSG Circle, her coach asked why she wanted to keep going when she was already a world champion. Her answer was the Youth Olympic Games, a "bigger stage".

To get there she trained twice a day and, as she put it to CNA, would spend whole days at the training centre, eating and sleeping there.

Friend, coach, nutritionist

In Dakar, Ng was guided by team manager Vera Tan, 28, a three-time world champion who competed at Nanjing 2014 when wushu was only a demonstration sport. Tan, who is still an active athlete herself, watched over Ng's meals and sleep, checked on her nerves and once ran back to fetch the costume Ng had forgotten.

"I try to strike a balance (between) being sort of a friend and coach, and act like her mother." - Vera Tan, to ActiveSG Circle

Before the final, Ng was missing jumps and difficulty elements in the warm-up area. Tan told her to calm down and think of the good repetitions she had already done. Ng also has her own way of handling nerves: she shrugs her shoulders and laughs it out, a trick she picked up from an Instagram reel.

Tan pointed out that the Youth Olympic format, with the same two routines performed in both the preliminaries and the final and scores combined, asks more of young athletes mentally than the single-event format of the World Junior Championships.

Singapore's Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, David Neo, congratulated Ng on what he called a historic achievement.

All four Dakar 2026 wushu podiums: Wushu's first Olympic champions.

Sources: Olympics.com (Olympic Information Service), ActiveSG Circle, CNA, The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao.

Photo: OIS / Remi Vallat

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