SINGAPORE – National taekwondo athlete Ng Ming Wei is not as well known in real life as two-time Olympic swimmer Quah Zheng Wen, but, on Instagram the 24-year-old is one of most-followed Singapore athletes.
Ng’s 47,500 followers – compared to Quah’s 17,800 – are a result of him posting videos of himself using taekwondo moves to play other sports, such as bowling and table tennis.
A video of the 24-year-old using his foot as a table tennis bat, posted last month, garnered almost 260,000 views and 7,875 likes.
Another video which shows him scoring at arcade basketball by kicking the ball has more than 170,000 views and 7,103 likes.
While he has garnered fame with his antics, the 2015 SEA Games Kyorugi bronze medallist hopes his fortunes would be improved as well, as he aims to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Others have raised their own funds in recent years in pursuit of their sporting dreams – rower Saiyidah Aisyah started a crowd-funding campaign for the Rio Olympics, while golfer Koh Sock Hwee gave tuition part-time to support her professional career.
But Ng, who also won a gold medal at the 2017 Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships, decided to do it differently.
“I chose Instagram because it’s easy to use and I like making videos,” Ng told The Straits Times last week.
He first posted a video of him kicking his own head in April 2017, which has 24,590 views and 3,862 likes. The response to that video was so positive that Ng decided to post more.
“I was thinking of ways to get sponsors and I thought that wasn’t a bad response.
“But I realised that views weren’t increasing because I was only posting taekwondo-related stuff so I moved on to other sports that people normally do and tried to do more common stuff in a fun way.”
At the same time, Ng also hopes to raise awareness about his sport.
“Taekwondo is not a mainstream sport in Singapore. I hope that by doing these videos and making taekwondo look enjoyable, people will know more about it,” he said.
Business student Ian Tham, who films some of Ng’s videos, said: “Instagram is the fastest and cheapest way to promote (himself) so he’s smart for using it.”
Ng spent about 10 minutes filming the arcade basketball video, but four times as long for the table tennis video due to passers-by in the background.
He has not set a funding target and secured only a sponsorship for headphones since he started promoting himself on Instagram. He does not have a back-up plan, although his parents have been supporting him in his sporting career in the last 10 years, to the tune of a six-figure sum.
What he is more clear of, though, are his plans towards Tokyo 2020.
Ng will be training in Norway for three months starting this May, and aims to enter the Summer Universiade in Napoli, Italy in July before returning to Nanyang Technological University for his final semester.
The psychology student will then train full time after he graduates in December up to the 2020 Asian Qualification Tournament for the Tokyo Olympics in April next year.
He said: “More money means more competitions. That means I can apply more of what I learnt in training to see if it’s working and also keep up with the dynamics of competitive taekwondo.”
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