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name: Christopher Kelly Wong (Christopher Kelly Wong)
Year: twenty one
height: 1.78 meters
weight: 73.5kg
Profession: University Undergraduate
situation: attached
food: Throughout the year, I try different diets. For most of the year, I aim to maintain a diet of 40% protein, 20% fat, and 40% carbohydrates. This is aimed at building muscle and helps me stay healthy while studying. Usually, before a competition or when I play a lot of sports, I change my diet to 30% protein, 20% fat, and 50% carbohydrates, as this helps me maintain a higher body fat percentage during the competition months.
Lastly, I usually trim down before summer for a beach body, which usually consists of a diet of 50% protein, 20% fat, and 30% carbs. I don’t count calories, but rather try to maintain a consistent amount of food at each meal.
exercise: I train in the gym 4-5 times a week (upper body 3 times, lower body 2 times) and also do cardio once a week in addition to weekly hockey practice and games.
Q: Were you into sports when you were younger?
A: Yes, I’ve been playing sports ever since I could walk. I started playing soccer when I was 3 or 4 years old, and rugby when I was 6. I started playing ice hockey when I was 8, then stopped playing soccer. I played rugby until my senior year of high school, when I had to stop because of an ankle injury. I still play hockey.
What made you start playing ice hockey?
I first became interested in ice hockey through a friend’s father who suggested I give it a try since I liked the physicality of rugby, and I was hooked on the sport ever since.
When did you realise you wanted to go further and play for the national team?
When I was 15, my coach asked me if I was interested in trying out for the national team. Of course I was very interested and was fortunate to be selected for the national team and be one of the first players placed in the youth program.
This was a program to develop the future of ice hockey in Singapore. I played in the national tournament for the first time in the Philippines in 2017 and remember it was the most nerve-wracking and exciting tournament of my life. I lost all but one game, but I loved every moment of it.
“For a 15-year-old boy, there is nothing better than the feeling of playing for your country. After that tournament, I decided to be part of the future of ice hockey in Singapore.
What are some memorable highlights from your ice hockey career so far?
The 2019 SEA Games are definitely the best. For reference, in the last SEA Games, our team missed out on the bronze medal. The year before that, in the Asian Challenge Cup, we won the bronze medal match against Malaysia, but lost the silver medal to the Philippines.
Fast forward to 2019, and we are back in the Philippines, playing for the SEA Games silver medal. This was the most important game our team has ever played. We were down 2-0 after the first period, but we came back to win 4-3. I remember the whole team was really excited when the time was up. The feeling of celebrating such a big win with the team was just amazing. Singing the national anthem was the proudest thing I’ve ever done.
Conversely, what are the challenges?
The biggest challenge we faced happened last year. We usually train at the J-Cube, but we had to close it down for financial reasons, and we lost our ice hockey rink. Closing the rink was hard for many of our athletes to accept.
For many of us, this rink was like a “second home.” I’ve been going there at least four times a week since I was 10 years old. I speak for all of the young people when I say we basically grew up there. Our team has grown since 2017.
In 2022 we are promoted to World Champions Division 4 and then further promoted to Division 3B – ice hockey in Singapore is at an unprecedented level – the closure of the rinks means this progress will slow down significantly (something that we hope never stops, but is a very real possibility we now face).
Our team went to Bosnia to compete in the World Champions Division 3B again. While myself and a few other players continue to train overseas for our university teams, the players who remain in Singapore can only train on the ice once a month (in Johor Bahru). Not only is it hard to stay in shape without a rink, it’s also very difficult to maintain team coordination. Imagine having final exams and studying the night before. That’s what we’ll be doing next month.
Our organization has been exploring options to build another rink, but there is a severe lack of funding and support to do so. The saddest part is that our youth programs will be gone. We had youth players who just made it onto the national team last year who showed great potential. The fact that these players will not receive the proper amount of training and support is extremely unfortunate.
You appeared on this fitness series in 2019 and received some heartless comments too, how did you feel about that?
It was tough. I was brought up (just like now) to show support for my team, but instead I got negative comments. It was unexpected. That said, I’ve never been one to get discouraged by others. When you grow up playing sports, you learn how to turn negative comments into fuel. That fuel lit a fire in me and motivated me to keep going and not give up.
On the one hand, it made me very angry. Unfortunately, we live in a society of hate, and for the wrong people, that hate can go too far and cause serious problems in the future. I hope that anyone thinking of making a negative comment will think carefully about the harm they might cause.
When did your moment of brilliance happen?
To be honest, it happened over the course of three years after I graduated from high school. The first part was when I was in the military. The rigorous training gave me the tools and the ability to develop better habits.
After I got out of hospital I made sure to continue training, trying different diet and training plans. It was a long process but after a few years of perfecting it, I have to say I’m happy with the program I created.
Did you experience anything when you were younger that made you feel less confident in yourself?
As I mentioned before, as an athlete I was already used to negative energy and adversity so I learned to deal with this from a young age. That being said, I struggled a lot with my anger in sports when I was younger. I struggled when things weren’t going my way (when the team was losing or there was negativity in the team) and my ability to play was affected because my head was often not in the right mental state.
My high school rugby coach noticed this struggle I was having and helped me develop ways and strategies to overcome such frustrations. Later, one of my ice hockey coaches also helped me in this regard. He taught me mindfulness and meditation to stay in a good mental state before and after games. I am really, really grateful for this. Without his intervention, I think this would have deeply influenced and changed my ice hockey career today.
When have you felt least confident in yourself?
During and before the COVID-19 Circuit Breaker period. I was in the class of 2020, so all my school classes, prom night, graduation, and exams were cancelled. For me, that was very difficult to accept.
Being a very active person, being confined to my house was very hard. Not being able to do any sports, see friends or even go to the gym was quite a struggle, to be honest. It was hard to find the motivation to maintain the same amount of exercise and eat right as I did before lockdown. Some people were able to find the motivation to stay in shape during this period, but unfortunately I was not one of them. By the end of lockdown I had gained a lot of weight and felt very unwell.
I was lucky enough to join the army midway through lockdown and I truly believe this helped me – I was able to exercise and socialise again whilst learning new skills – this was the start of my fitness transformation.
Are you happy with your body now?
Yes, that’s right. I’m happy that I have a good physique, in addition to an athletic build. That’s the ideal scenario for me. I still have to continue to improve my strength to be stronger on the ice, but at least I feel like I’m on the right path.
