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At 57, she took part in the 80m hurdles, running 200m and 800m, high jump, long jump, shot put and the javelin throw.\u00a0 Then on 2 July, Singapore […]","datePublished":"2022-08-07","dateModified":"2022-08-09","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/editor1\/#Person","name":"Judith Tan","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/editor1\/","identifier":57,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Judith-Tan-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Judith-Tan-100x100.jpg","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Source-Jerusalem-Academy-of-Music-and-Dance_Featured-Image.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Source-Jerusalem-Academy-of-Music-and-Dance_Featured-Image.jpg","height":900,"width":1600},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/belinda-foo-former-national-squash-queen-who-is-still-breaking-records-at-57\/","video":{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"VideoObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UBf3KWM3qMY#VideoObject","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UBf3KWM3qMY","name":"2013 XTERRA World Championship Highlights","description":"October 27, 2013 (Kapalua, Maui) -- More than 800 endurance athletes from around the world participated in the 18th annual off-road triathlon, which started and finished at The Ritz-Carlton Kapalua hotel on Maui. 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She also beat her personal best by more than 1,000 points.Belinda Foo soaring at the long jump event, part of her Heptathlon at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Tampere, Finland. (Photo source: SMTFA\/Facebook)Her achievement, some would say, is not at all surprising as \u201csports has always been a big part of my life\u201d, Foo tells TheHomeGround Asia.Training with the men to up her gameIn her teens, she became interested in squash, having watched it being played.\u00a0Having grown up in a single-parent household, there was no extra cash for extra curricular activities outside of school. That was when national squash player and friend from school Shandini Dhanabalan told her about the Pepsi Squash Training Scheme \u201cand that was when I signed up\u201d, she recalls.Launched in 1978, the Pepsi Squash Training Scheme is an attempt to uphold the high status of squash in Singapore by improving the calibre of Singapore\u2019s national players not only through training but also scouting the schools for the best talents.Belinda Foo pitting her skills against Dawn Olsen of Hong Kong. (Photo courtesy of Belinda Foo)Through the scheme and under national coach Martin Webb, who trained her with the boys team, her technique improved \u201cin leaps and bounds\u201d.\u201cI was the only female player training at the courts in the former Raffles Institution (RI) at Grange Road,\u201d Foo says, laughing.She was only 17 when she became the 1982 Under-19 Squash Champion. She also represented Singapore in the Asian Junior Championships in 1983 and the East Asian Championships in 1984, bringing home the gold medal both times. Belinda Foo (extreme left) with the Singapore Squash team in Port Moresby. She replaced national player Diana Yow at the East Asian Championships in Papua New Guinea after Yow became the fifth player to pull out, dashing Singapore\u2019s hope of upsetting East Asia women\u2019s champion Hong Kong. (Photo courtesy of Belinda Foo)After an impressive performance at the Asian Junior Championships in 1983, Foo replaced national player Diana Yow at the games in Papua New Guinea. Yow was the fifth player to pull out after Lim Seok Hui, Sue Paton, Lyn Hodgins and Tracy Oh, dashing Singapore\u2019s hope of upsetting East Asia women\u2019s champion Hong Kong.While she was playing squash and acing the sport, Foo discovered her love for water-skiing, and when Singapore hosted the World Water-ski Championships in 1993, \u201cI was given the opportunity to represent the nation in water-skiing in the jump event\u201d, she says.She got the music in herFoo says her mother had wanted her to become a lawyer and break out of her status in society.\u00a0\u201cShe was very disappointed when I did not make it to law school. I was both disappointed and relieved because I was not interested in studying law. Instead, I wanted to study music,\u201d she says.Since law school was out of the way, Foo started to work by teaching music and playing the piano at hotel lounges. That was where she was talent spotted and asked to join a \u201cTop 40s band\u201d, with which she played for two years, singing six nights a week.\u201cThe scene was draining, both physically and mentally. I realised that performing was not for me and I was looking at writing music as a career so a friend suggested I should further my music education at the Grove School of Music (GSM), where I studied composition, arrangement and film scoring,\u201d she says.The school in Los Angeles, USA, was set up by American musician, composer, arranger and educator Richard Dean Grove. Its students include Michael Jackson and Linda Ronstadt, and its teachers Henry Mancini and Bill Conti.\u201cI was fortunate to have had \u2018angel\u2019 sponsors for my studies at GSM where the approach to music education was vocational and we were prepared for the music industry by a faculty comprising professionals working in Hollywood. There was a regular stream of guest lecturers like Lalo Schifrin who composed the \u2018Mission Impossible\u2019 theme,\u201d Foo says.She returned to Singapore and worked at a production company with the late Cultural medallion recipient Iskandar Ismail, film producer Ricky Ho and guitarist Shah Tahir. The local music industry was then at its peak and Foo was kept busy writing pop song arrangements and music for National Day.She has even written for the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO), the Singapore and Hongkong Arts Festivals and composed music for several musicals including, \u201cDarkest before Dawn\u201d and \u201cThe Other Wiseman\u201d.After being in the music industry for 25 years, Foo changed direction and is currently a lecturer at the LASALLE College of the Arts. \u00a0\u201cI believe it is vital to stay abreast of the music and arts scene. I may not agree with everything that is new but I think it is important to know what is trending since I am supposed to equip my students with the right knowledge for the industry,\u201d she says.She adds that students \u201chold up mirrors\u201d so she has to \u201cwalk the talk\u201d.From the confines of four walls in squash to the wide open space of athleticsBut sports never left Foo as it has become part of her DNA since her squash days.\u201cMany friends have asked me to return to squash but it\u2019s the same black ball and the same walls so I decided to do something else. Three children later and at 40, I began participating in age-group triathlons, and then ventured off-road to do the Xterra, an off-road triathlon,\u201d she says, adding that she qualified for the Xterra World Championship in Maui, Hawaii in 2013.A year short of her 50th birthday, while her teenage son was training on the track, she decided to go back to her \u201cfast twitch\u201d roots and one thing led to another \u201cand I found myself learning to hurdle, jump over a bar backwards (the Fosbury Flop), throw a javelin\u2026 among four other things\u201d.\u00a0\u201cBefore I knew it, I had signed up for the Heptathlon at the 2015 World Masters in Lyon,\u201d she says.But ageing meant \u201cplummeting oestrogen levels\u201d and \u201cbouts of injuries\u201d.\u201cSo, that was when I felt compelled to learn more about how older bodies respond and adapt to exercise and training. While there is no lack of coaching and training information for younger athletes, there isn\u2019t a lot out there that\u2019s appropriate for older ones. This led me on the Sports Science path: I was compelled to learn how the body worked and played, and how to keep it running, jumping and throwing year on year: improving, extending mobility and attenuating age-related performance decline,\u201d she says.So it was back to school again for Foo, graduating in 2020 with a Bachelor of Science in Sports Science.\u201cNow that I understand how the older body works and how far it can be pushed, I\u2019m ready to push mine to its limit for the next competition,\u201d she says.Belinda Foo believes in the idea of \u2018aggregation of marginal gains\u2019, where should you improved every area by just 1 per cent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement. (Photo source: SMTFA\/Facebook)And for seniors who want to do the same, Foo says no one is ever too old for masters sports and that the body is amazingly adaptable.\u00a0\u201cIf you commit to regular, progressive training, you can get better, stronger, fitter. I\u2019m a firm believer in the James Clear-Dave Brailsford idea of \u2018aggregation of marginal gains\u2019. It\u2019s the 1 per cent margin for improvement in everything you do. The belief is that if you improved every area by just 1 per cent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement,\u201d she says.RELATED: Defying age barriers at world track and field championshipJoin the conversations on TheHomeGround Asia\u2019s Facebook and Instagram, and get the latest updates via Telegram."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Belinda Foo: Former national squash queen who is still breaking records at 57","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/belinda-foo-former-national-squash-queen-who-is-still-breaking-records-at-57\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]