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“I’m gonna take you to my special place,” Jin Teik told me chirpily. We were cruising along ECP on a bright morning, in a handsome Mercury Gray Mica Lexus ES. He wouldn’t say much about the ‘special place’, only that he discovered it while on “Dad duty” – sending his second son to Hendon Camp where he did his National Service.
As CEO of the Singapore Sports Hub, Jin Teik ensures that the complex works like a well-oiled machine, that its facilities are pulling in the crowd, that the vicinity is pristine, safe and attractive. To his credit, the Sports Hub has been meeting its KPIs since he took over the running of the complex.
From ECP, we turned into Tanah Merah Coast Road, then on to Aviation Park Road, and Changi Coast Road, towards Changi Beach Park. The roads were empty save for occasional dump trucks; we could’ve easily done 140kph, but Jin Teik kept to a steady 80kph, clearly relishing our leisurely ride.
Along the way he told me stories about his sons – one an athlete, the other a musician, his heady days at the LA Olympics, his life as a student abroad. “I enjoy driving along this road,” he changed the subject as the sea came into view. “You can’t tell we’re still in Singapore; look at that,” he said gesturing to the boundless space. After years living in the US, Jin Teik has developed a hankering for long, scenic drives.
In school, Jin Teik made the swim team. “We trained with our school coach who imparted all the knowledge he had about swimming, some of which were borrowed from physics, the subject he taught,” he recalls with unmasked wonderment. His dedication to the sport sent him to the Singapore Olympic squad. It was another time and place when he represented Singapore in the 1984 LA Olympics.
Training didn’t always benefit from modern sports medicine or sport physiology; athletes traveled with their teams instead of an entourage, ‘no guts, no glory’ still rang true.
As a student in the US, and later as an employee, Jin Teik traveled around in a car. “My second job at DuPont was in sales, but before DuPont allowed you to drive a company car, they put you through hours of defensive driving. I had to go to a circuit and drive at the fastest speed like an F1 driver.”
On his first training day, the instructor kept egging him to go faster. “I’ve never heard anyone telling me that I was going too slow until then. Suddenly, he stuck his foot out and stepped on the accelerator, sending the car literally flying.
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