Being a jack-of-all-trades pays off for Black Dot's Nicholas Fang

MY relationship with sport did not get off to a roaring start straight off the bat. I was a fairly sedentary child, preferring to lounge in front of the TV or read (the Internet wasn't a big thing in those days), rather than getting physically active.

Like many other Singaporean kids, I was sent for swimming lessons, ostensibly for water safety, and also martial arts classes (aikido) for self-defence. The real reasons, as confirmed by my parents later on, was to burn off excess energy so I would be less of a nuisance in general.

I only became a real fan of the sporting lifestyle in my mid-teens, when I got into triathlons and fencing for both the competitive thrill and also the (self-perceived) boost it gave to my image among my peers.