SEA Games: Major injury fails to derail Janine

NAYPYIDAW- Injuries and distractions are the bane of athletes in the midst of preparing for major competitions.

Yet, Singapore's Janine Khoo overcame both of them in spectacular fashion at the SEA Games in Naypyidaw, clinching a rare equestrian gold for the country in the individual showjumping event yesterday.

The distraction was the GCE O-level examinations - something which was constantly at the back of the 16-year-old Methodist Girls' School student's mind as she juggled studies and sport.

But her injury, which happened 10 days before the vital exams and two months before the Games, was something she could not possibly have prepared for.

"We were trying to clear two fences, but, after jumping the first, the horse swerved before the second," she said, recalling the October incident.

"I was thrown off into the frame of the fence and the pain I felt then was something that I would rather want to forget."

Her cheekbones were smashed in the fall and she needed reconstructive surgery to insert four titanium plates and a wire mesh to restore her face.

The surgery took five hours and she spent four days in hospital.

But it took only three weeks after the accident before she was back on a horse at the National Equestrian Centre.

"All the time when I was hospitalised, I was thinking about riding a horse again," she said.

"There was never any thought of fear that crossed my mind."

Indeed, that horrifying injury failed to derail her, as she still took the O levels and, yesterday, rode two flawless showjumping rounds to seal the gold.

It was Singapore's first equestrian gold since the 1995 Chiang Mai Games, when Sumana Rajarethnam, James Ng, Catherine Oh and Peter Abisheganaden won the three-day eventing team gold.

Abisheganaden, who is the course designer at these Games, won the nation's last individual showjumping gold at the 1983 Games on home ground.

Janine, who was the first Singaporean to make it into the Federation Equestre Internationale World Jumping Challenge final in July, finished ahead of Thailand's Jaruporn Limpichati and Indonesia's Jendry Palandeng.

She was full of praise for her horse CP Safari, and admitted feeling fortunate that she was allocated such a brave partner.

She said: "We had two days of practice before going into competition, and I felt that, once we had grown used to each other, my horse was also 'fighting' for me - it was willing to help me cross the fences."

Melanie Chew, president of the Equestrian Federation of Singapore, reckoned that her young equestrian rider was equally brave.

"It's possible that she would have had flashbacks of her accident, which was less than two months ago. Her ability to overcome her disaster was really a fairy tale," she said.

"She had nerves of steel, was very calm and showed complete focus.

"Many riders forget the course because they are nervous, but Janine was able to ride the four courses in the final completely from memory without a fault.

"And she's only 16 years old. We think she is a future champion who can go up to the Olympics."

Janine, however, prefers to look only as far as 2015, when she hopes equestrian would be on the sports programme at the SEA Games in Singapore.

"I really want to put on a show for my family and friends," said Janine, whose dad Teng Cheong, now a managing director at DBS Bank, was a former national swimmer, Sportsboy of the Year in 1978 and 1979, as well as a SEA Games gold medallist in 1979. Her mother Carol is a housewife.

As for herself, she feels that the gold is the culmination of her love affair with horses, which began when she was just two years old, and her family was shuttling between Singapore, New York and Shanghai.

"I told my parents that I love horses, so they used to take me for pony rides whenever they could," she recalled.

"Then I had my first horse-riding lesson in Shanghai when I was six, and I just kept on riding after that.

"I'd rather ride a horse than watch TV, I guess that's how I cobalanced training and studies."

Not to mention overcoming the setback of a frightening injury to be back at what she does best.

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