Julia Yeo, Max Maeder & Other Young Athletes Making Singapore Proud At SEA Games 2025

The 2025 SEA Games in Thailand are drawing to a close, and Singapore’s finest athletes have delivered remarkable performances across a wide range of sports, from swimming to athletics. Throughout the exciting week, we have witnessed moments of determination, resilience, and triumph. And during this time, a number of young athletes have made also waves for their performances. Most recently, 14-year-old swimmer Julia Yeo played a key role in helping her team secure a gold medal.

From the swimming pool to the skate park and fencing pistes, these tweens and teens have stepped up to represent the nation on the international stage.

Julia Yeo, 14, Swimming

Since her surprise appearance in the women’s 4x100m medley relay final at the SEA Games, swimmer Julia Yeo has been on a whirlwind ride. It happened so quickly that the 14-year-old could barely remember the finer details of the night of Dec 15.

She was sitting on the stands, cheering on her teammates when she was suddenly notified that she would be swimming the backstroke leg of the relay in place of a a fellow swimmer, Levenia Sim, who had suffered a shoulder injury during the warmup.

Carrying no swimming gear on her, Julia frantically threw on a teammate’s swimsuit, goggles and cap. Before she knew it, she was already in the water, swimming her leg of the relay.

The whirlwind substitution ended in gold, as Julia teamed up with Quah Ting Wen, Quah Jing Wen and Letitia Sim to clock a Games record 4min 05.79sec, retaining the title in an event that Singapore has won since 2003.

Felix Felipe Rui Balzer, 11, Skateboarding

Felix, the youngest athlete representing Singapore at the 2025 SEA Games, dreams of winning an Olympic gold medal. His journey into skateboarding began when he was just three years old, after witnessing it in action at Somerset Skate Park.

Despite some initial concerns from his mother, Felix continued to hone his craft. He has since competed on the international stage, including the 2024 Olympic qualifiers and the Rome stop of the 2025 World Skateboarding Tour. In August, he also finished second at the National Skateboarding Championships.

Anya Alessia Zahedi, 12, Sailing

At just 12-years-old, Anya Zahedi won a silver medal in the girls’ optimist event on Dec 14, finishing second out of six. Her journey into sailing began in an unexpected yet inspiring way, as she was influenced by her older sister, who took up sailing as a co-curricular activity. Curiosity soon turned into passion as she took it up at the age of seven and started competing at nine.

Ethan Chia, 15, Sailing

In early Nov, right before a routine competition in the lead-up to the SEA Games, things took a turn expectedly for national sailor, Ethan Chia. While competing at the Regatta of Champions in Cyprus, the 15-year-old was struck by acute appendicitis and had to undergo surgery. Fortunately, the condition was detected quite early and far enough from the SEA Games so he managed to recover just in time. Just days after returning from Cyprus, Ethan took part in the SEA Games pre-event at the Sattahip coastal area in Chonburi. Although he did not compete, he went out on a boat to analyse the races.

Despite the ordeal, Ethan managed to reach his goals for the SEA Games. He went on to win the gold medal, scoring 15 points across 10 races from Dec 10 to 14 to edge out Thailand’s 26-year-old Adison Ein and Malaysia’s 27-year-old Yaasin Syahrizan.

Marissa Hafezan, 19, Karate

Marissa Hafezan won Singapore’s first SEA Games karate gold in 30 years after clinching the women’s kumite 55kg title on Dec 12. Her victory in Thailand also ended a 14-year medal drought for Singapore in karate at the biennial event.

However, things were far from smooth sailing for Marissa in the lead-up to the Games as she’d dislocated her shoulder during a competition in Brunei in June and underwent surgery a month later. Her participation in the 2025 SEA Games was uncertain, but she was eventually passed fit and even aced her first test at the Games.

Taking up karate was never part of Marissa’s plans. Her younger sister, Nelisa, now 18, had enrolled in the sport first. After accompanying her sister to her first training session, six-year-old Marissa’s curiosity was piqued and this marked the beginning of her journey in karate.

Elle Koh, 18, Fencing

Fencing runs in Elle’s blood. Born to fencer parents who run Blade Club Singapore, the sport is deeply ingrained in her family. She began fencing at the age of four, with her father, a national epee coach, training her, while her mother helms Fencing Singapore, the national sports association for fencing in Singapore.

For the 2025 SEA Games, she clinched her third SEA Games individual épée gold, beating teammate Kiria Tikanah Abdul Rahman 9–8 after extra time in the final.

Tina Wan, 19, Skateboarding

The only female skateboarder to represent the Republic at the event, Tina finished sixth out of 10 competitors in the competition. She began skating on a Penny board after her PSLE and wanted to upgrade to a standard skateboard after being encouraged by others. However, to her dismay, her mother initially said no, leaving her in tears for three hours. Thankfully, her older brother stepped in and persuaded their mother, who eventually relented.

When Tina first started out, she skated alone at the void deck. She later began honing her craft at the Stadium Skate Park in Kallang after a deliveryman she met encouraged her to do so. With further encouragement from her friends, she started taking part in competitions for fun and to gain experience. Her first competition was in 2020 at Somerset Skate Park, where she ranked among the top five, followed by a fourth-place finish in her second competition.

After being selected for the SEA Games about three months ago, the year two student studying Integrated Facility Management at Temasek Polytechnic increased her training frequency from two to three sessions each week to roughly four times a week.

Jedd Tan, 18, Ju-jitsu

Debuting at the 2025 SEA Games, Jedd clinched the ju-jitsu gold medal in the men’s 77kg final. He spent a month preparing for this big day, cutting over 10kg from his 87kg frame. Despite the pain of weight cutting and pre-match jitters, he managed to overcome them.

The youngest member of the Singapore squad, he won gold in the 2024 South-east Asia Regional Ju-jitsu Championship in the Under-21 ne-waza 85kg category, and was fifth at the Asian Championship in the fighting system 77kg competition.

Maximilian Maeder, 19, Sailing

Those who kept up with last year’s Paris Olympics need no introduction to Max Maeder, who clinched the bronze medal for kitefoiling, a sport that made its debut only then.

The Max was introduced to kiteboarding by his father when he was just six. When he was 10, he ventured into kitefoiling, a more advanced version of the sport. By the age of 11, he set himself a target of being a world champion. The driven teenager did just that five years later in 2023, and more as he holds the distinction of being the youngest winner in any Olympic sailing class competition.

For the 2025 SEA Games, he ranked first out of four and clinched the gold medal.

Tabitha Yeo, 16, Archery

Tabitha Yeo and her teammate Li Yue Long, won gold in the SEA Games mixed recurve archery team event, overcoming challenging conditions. The bull’s eye in archery’s recurve events is the size of a grapefruit – 12.2cm in diameter. And on that particular day of Dec 17, the 33 deg C heat, gusty winds and a 10-minute delay caused by a power outage made it even more nerve-wrecking.

Tabitha is also the daughter of former national dragon boater Yeo Chee Wee, who represented Singapore at the 1995 and 1997 SEA Games.

Russel Pang, 15, Swimming

Russel Pang made his SEA Games debut and set a new Singapore national record in the Men’s 1500m Freestyle (LCM) with a time of 15:28.46, earning a bronze medal at the 2025 SEA Games.

He broke the previous national record of 15:30.87, set by Glen Lim on 5 December 2019.

Ainslee Kwang, 14, Diving, competing 19 Dec

Despite her young age, Ainslee clinched bronze in the Women’s Open Synchronized Platform event with teammate Megan Yow and finished 5th in the Individual Women’s Open Platform at the 11th Asian Diving Championships.

She first attended a diving trial at the age of seven and was immediately hooked by the adrenaline rush she felt while in the air. Wanting to experience it again, she was propelled to pursue diving. At this year’s SEA Games, she competes in the Women’s 10m Platform Synchronised segment.

Ryenne Cham, 14, Diving

Ainslee’s teammate Ryenne, who is also 14 years old, competes alongside her in the same event.

Troy Tian Storm, 16, Golf

Troy is the youngest golfer on the Singapore team participating in the SEA Games. When he first started out, he played not just golf but also sports such as football and rugby.

He started golf at six, enrolling in a programme with his older sister Freja after being motivated by his father, who is from Denmark, and his Singaporean mother. However, it was just a hobby to him as football was his favourite sport. Soon after his skills improved and and his desire to refine his shots grew stronger. Hence, he stopped playing football competitively at the age of 14 and shifted his focus entirely to golf.

At the 2025 SEA Games, he achieved ninth place among 32 competitors in the Men’s Individual event.

Tyan Foong, 16, Wakeboarding

Tyan started out her sports journey with football at eight, before her uncle introduced wakeboarding to her and her sisters about two years later. She realised that she had a lot of interest in it and got her first wakeboard at twelve.

Now, at the age of 16, Tyan is part of the six member wakeboarding team competing at the 2025 SEA Games. However, managing her time to balance between her studies and wakeboarding was far from easy as she sat for her O-Level examinations this year. Her team managed to clinch the silver medal.

Amanda Yap, 16, Gymnastics

Like Tyan, Amanda is juggling two of the most demanding challenges of the year — her O-Level examinations and gymnastics.

Her journey into the sport began when she watched her sister train and was captivated by the gymnastics routines she saw on television. Inspired, she followed in her sister’s footsteps, and what started as a hobby gradually developed into a professional pursuit.

At the 2025 SEA Games, she finished with a silver medal.

Azfar Luqman Ong, 19, Fencing

A debutant fencer in the 2025 SEA Games, Azfar passion for fencing began with his love for the Star Wars films. Initially, he wanted to play football but his mum wanted him to try a different sport and nudged him into fencing when she learnt about the Singapore Sports School’s (SSP) Learn-to-Fence programme. When he first put on the fencing mask, the avid Star Wars fan felt that the sport was fun, as suiting up made him feel like the movie’s villain Darth Vader.

Starting at the age of 12, Azfar quickly set his mind on qualifiying for the national team and representing Singapore in professional competitions. The valedictorian of the Singapore Sports School Secondary Section, Class of 2023, competes in the men’s épée event on Dec 19.