I couldn’t have been more than six years old when my dad bowled a red Kookaburra ball at me at what seemed like an alarming pace.
We were at the batting cages at the far end of the Padang at the Singapore Cricket Club. My dad, a former national cricketer, was a member of the establishment and found it fitting one Sunday to leave his bar stool and drag me down to the massive field and get me hooked on the sport.
His intentions – and my swing of the cricket bat – missed by considerable measure.
The heavy hard ball struck my shin instead, causing me to drop the bat and scream in agony. I decided then and there that I wanted nothing more to do with cricket. Till today, I have never picked up the bat again.
One wonders what might have been had Singapore kitefoiler and Olympic medallist Maximilian Maeder experienced a similar first-time experience when his dad Valentin first taught him how to sail. What if he had fallen off his board? What if he had hurt himself?
Truth is, all that probably happened – countless times. And Max duly picked himself up and got better and better.
His dad Valentin would have encouraged him every step of the way.
So while we celebrate Max’s achievements at the Paris Olympics, where the 17-year-old won bronze in the men’s kitefoiling event, let’s also send kudos to his parents Valentin and Hwee Keng, who deserve a salute for raising a champion.
Kiteboarders themselves, the Swiss and Singaporean couple introduced Max – and his two younger siblings – to kiteboarding when he was six. He picked up kitefoiling two years later.
By the time he was 11, Max was on the professional circuit, racing against adults. Today, he has six world youth titles and two senior world titles in his trophy case.
There are no shortcuts to nurturing a sailing champion, says Ben Tan, a former national sailor and Olympian.
In his op-ed for CNA, Tan, who has known Max since the latter began sailing, wrote that the teen’s formative years spent at the Wakatobi Dive Resort on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi undoubtedly had a big role in his progress. The resort was built and is run by Valentin and Hwee Keng.
Max’s upbringing was also crucial – even as the Maeders’ parenting style might be counterintuitive to some. “Homeschooling was a natural decision for the Maeders, and so was racing (sometimes unaccompanied) on the professional circuit among adults,” Tan wrote.
Indeed, there are many ways to groom a champion. But some tenets must persist. Like how parents should ensure their kids are playing the sport because they enjoy it, and not because they see you enjoying it.
Then there’s the maxim that “the car ride home is the most important part”.
Max, it seems, talks to his father daily, even when he is racing somewhere in Europe while his father is in remote Wakatobi.
When asked about their relationship, Max said he looks to his dad for advice and that his father provides a safe space. Even during the Olympics, those daily chats served as pre-race “framing” sessions and post-race debriefs. Crucially, Valentin acts as a sounding board and does not tell Max what to do.
Then there’s teaching your kid how to lose well – a trait the well-spoken and graceful Max exemplified after winning bronze in Paris. He hugged his opponents and wasted no time in paying tribute to both the gold- and silver-medalists.
Foreign journalists have also been won over. After a seven-minute interview in German – Max speaks multiple languages – his interviewer remarked to Singaporean journalists how the teenager’s poise was of somebody far beyond his tender age.
Even President Tharman Shanmugaratnam weighed in. “Max is mature beyond his years – his teenage smile and traces of puppy fat are deceptive. There is a new wind in Singapore sports,” he wrote in a social media post.
Before Max’s feats in Paris, some quarters couldn’t resist but draw comparisons with him and swimmer Joseph Schooling – Singapore’s gold medallist from 2016.
Understandable, seeing that they’re both Eurasian, talented and personable.
There’s a salient similarity among their parents too. Much like Valentin and Hwee Keng, Colin and May Schooling made countless sacrifices and ultimately took a leap of faith amid a conservative Singapore sporting culture to groom a successful athlete overseas.
In a way, parents deserve medals too.
Instead, they must be content with simply living vicariously through their child’s success.
