It’s 4am on a Saturday. While most of Singapore sleeps, international youth figure skater Joyce Yang is already on her way to the Blue Ice Skating Rink in Johor Bahru. Ever since the closure of The Rink – Singapore’s only Olympic-sized rink – in 2023, skaters have had to travel across the border just to train. With limited facilities and a shrinking pool of athletes, competitive skating here is slowly losing momentum, and by the end of 2026, Joyce will hang up her skates for good.
In fact, Singapore’s small presence in international winter sports has always been a chicken-or-egg dilemma: are our athletes under-supported because of limited results, or should support come first in order for them to flourish? With recent milestones like Faiz Basha, an alpine skier, being the first Singaporean to qualify for a snow event at the Winter Olympics, perhaps it is time to invest more in our winter athletes. But for Joyce, this is her current reality:
Like Faiz Basha, Cheyenne Goh, and other Singaporean winter athletes, Joyce found her passion overseas. She moved from Singapore to Canada with her family at age 5, and tried out many different sports – but after a summer camp at age 7, figure skating stuck. “What inspired me was looking at the older skaters and seeing how graceful they were on the ice,” Joyce shared. “I wanted to be just like them.”
Soon, her potential was recognised at a learn-to-skate class at Skate Oakville, and she was invited to join the club’s pre-competitive team. Canada’s climate and skating culture made training accessible, and Joyce began to compete in nearby cities.
“I didn’t have a lot of achievements in Canada – my highest ranking was only 7 out of 20 people for provincials,” Joyce admitted. All of that was about to change, however, upon her return to Singapore.
But before she could flourish, Joyce had to weather her fair share of challenges, especially in a country without ice and a sport that demands stubborn levels of resilience.
Image credit: Edge Ice Skating Club via Facebook
At age 11, Joyce and her family moved back to Singapore for good. With Singapore’s tropical climate and only 1 Olympic-sized rink back then, Joyce endeavoured to continue her sport under the Singapore Ice Skating Association (SISA), a not-for-profit National Sports Association.
She mainly practised at The Rink located in JCube. “It only opened 2 hours per day for figure skating, which really wasn’t enough. And on Saturdays, they opened a slot from 5am to 6.45am, so I’d wake up at 4am just to catch the bus,” she shared.
But according to Joyce, the modest skating scene actually came with a perk. “Since Singapore is a lot smaller and ice skating isn’t well represented, I had more opportunities to learn skills and elements.”
Facing Singapore’s different skating syllabus, Joyce started from the basics and passed checkpoints smoothly until she qualified for international competitions as an Intermediate Novice. The thrill of being able to hear the crowd and show what she’s capable of pushed Joyce on, and she made use of the limited ice time to skate 6 hours a week when in Canada she’d been able to train at any time.
But skating clashes with the rigorous academics at Methodist Girls’ School, where she is currently studying. With high self-expectations and a flair for STEM, Joyce struggled to maintain her good grades. Skipping classes and exams for competitions was an inevitable part of her life, and often, not even homework could be submitted on time.
Her friends would keep her updated on homework and missed lessons, knowing that she keeps to a tight schedule. Of course, study hangouts were still an option. But what truly let Joyce keep going was an understanding school that would allow her to miss exams for major competitions. And while skating came 1st first and school 2nd, her priorities were blurring.
The Rink hosted international competitions such as the SEA Open Figure Skating Trophy.
Image credit: @therinksg via Instagram
By August 2023, the then-14-year-old Joyce faced a challenge that sheer hard work couldn’t fix: the closure of JCube and The Rink, which left Singapore’s winter athletes without an Olympic-sized training venue.
“When I saw the news at the time, I was kind of in denial. I really was quite hopeful that there’d be more opportunities for us,” Joyce recalled.
The only rink left was Kallang Ice World, which was less than half the size that athletes needed. To practice their full routines, skaters had to head across the border to Johor Bahru, and even that could only take place once a week. With limited options, athletes in Singapore basically had 2 choices: move overseas or quit. Joyce chose a 3rd path: keep going, despite the uncertainty.
Despite the challenges, there were anchors that kept Joyce from calling it quits on the hard days.
Joyce and her parents on holiday in Korea.
Image adapted from: Joyce Yang Yue En
If there’s one thing Joyce couldn’t have done without, it was her family. Figure skating is expensive, and her parents supported her for all of it – from overseas camps to $150/hour training sessions.
As an only child, her parents pooled together all of their resources in order to fund her dream. Be it competitions or overseas training camps, they would stay by her side to take down notes and keep her going with pep talks. “They always say that I should focus on the process rather than the result, so that even if I don’t do well, I know that I’ve tried my best,” Joyce said with a smile.
Joyce has represented Singapore in Thailand, Hong Kong, and the Philippines in elite competitions like the Junior Grand Prix. She is now a Junior on SISA’s international squad and enjoys performing elegant routines to classical music.
Whenever Joyce feels pressured seeing other skaters on the ice, she tries to treat them as her teammates rather than rivals. Unlike what the stereotypes might say, Joyce has a tight bond with both her coaches and fellow skaters.
Joyce and fellow skaters at the 2024 SEA Open Figure Skating Trophy in Manila, Philippines.
Image adapted from: Singapore Ice Skating Association via Facebook
According to Joyce, much of figure skating depends on the psyche. “How well you can execute a jump depends mostly on your mental state. The physical part is the part that you’ve already mastered.” Whenever Joyce doubted her abilities, one thing that kept her going was the words of others. “We spend a lot of our self-practice during public sessions at the rink. And since figure skaters are so rare, a lot of people come up to me to say that they feel inspired seeing me on the ice.”
Although feeling jittery before a competition is part and parcel of being an athlete, she’s found a way to get into the right headspace by imagining her performance as just another training session. She also reminds herself to slow down much more than her usual pace, as she tends to rush things through in order to get the competition over and done with.
Sadly, even though she has pressed on for years, Joyce no longer sees a future as a competitive figure skater in Singapore. Which brings us back to why she has made the tough choice to step away.
Image adapted from: Anthony Tran via Unsplash
Despite Joyce’s best efforts, fewer and fewer skaters are left in Singapore – and it’s hard to continue on without a community. Even though Joyce was awarded the prestigious ISU Junior Scholarship in 2024 and 2025, she admits that she’s been losing her drive for excellence.
“Honestly, the main reason behind my loss of motivation is the environment. I need to train with other people my age and level to actually push my boundaries and reach higher, but I don’t really have that,” Joyce explained.
Joyce’s skills have plateaued, and these days she’s mostly just training to maintain things. “At my level right now, just 2 days off the ice would affect most of my jumps,” she said. Competitions aren’t as easy to fit into her schedule anymore, and she feels as though she’s reached her absolute limit.
Image credit: The Rink via Facebook
Joyce’s plan had always been to skate competitively for as long as possible, which meant school often took a backseat. But now, at age 17 and gearing up for the rigorous International Baccalaureate diploma, she’s decided to step away from that dream sometime in 2026. After all, most professional figure skaters retire in their mid-20s – and for Joyce, her goal no longer feels realistic.
“It’s just… I feel that this isn’t really the right environment for figure skating to actually bloom,” she shared.
Joyce’s story raises a wider issue.
SISA has yet to find a stable solution for its skaters, even as our winter athletes make headlines abroad. Cheyenne Goh became our country’s 1st Winter Olympian in 2018, and Faiz Basha will be representing Singapore as our 2nd at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Rye Ong also made history by reaching the short track semi-finals at the 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympics.
Yet, many still have to train overseas for proper facilities. While SISA had plans for a new Olympic-sized rink this year, it’s been delayed due to a lack of funding. If Singapore wants to be a “Sporting Nation,” it raises the question: how can athletes reach their full potential without homegrown facilities?
Image adapted from: Methodist Girls’ School
Now, Joyce has decided to put her studies front and centre, and focus more on her other passion for programming and computer science.
That said, skating will not be leaving her life anytime soon. “I’ve always wanted skating to be more of a hobby rather than an entire career,” she said. “If I didn’t have skating, I would not be the person I am right now.” Beyond the competitions, it’s taught her patience, emotional management, and discipline – lessons she says she’ll carry with her no matter what comes next.
Despite her decision, Joyce isn’t giving up hope for figure skating in Singapore. “I have faith that we will be able to build an Olympic-sized rink in the future. And after that is done, I feel that skating will grow in the years to come.” After all, SISA’s plans for a new rink have not vanished, and our winter athletes have already proven their potential and their need for more support.
The future may be uncertain, but Singapore’s figure skating scene is still holding out. And who knows – maybe the next generation of skaters can put our Little Red Dot on the map.
For more sporty reads:
Image adapted from: Joyce Yang Yue En, Singapore Ice Skating Association via Facebook
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