S'porean national pole vaulter ignored by Athletics Association reps after equipment check-in lapse

Not cool, guys.

Mandy How | July 19, 2017, 06:02 PM

Rachel Isabel Yang is a Singaporean national pole vaulter.

Two years ago, she won Singapore's first pole-vaulting medal, a silver, at the 28th South East Asian Games:

And on an unrelated note, Yang, 35, also has a son, who would now be four years old:

You'd think an athlete with consistent results and with as much promise as Yang would get strong support from the national sporting association overseeing her, right?

Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be the case.

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In June this year, she and her coach-husband David Yeo were in Hong Kong for a competition. However, due to the fact that no prior arrangements had been made for the safe transport of her pole vaulting equipment by the Singapore Athletic Association (SAA), the couple was unable to board the plane and spent the next six hours trying to resolve the issue.

They only managed to catch the return flight the next day, with the assistance of Singapore Airlines (SIA).

Here's the related letter published in The Straits Times forum, originally written to commend SIA staff:

Source: Rachel Isabel Yong Facebook

The main gripe Yang and her husband had, however, albeit left unsaid in the letter above, was the unprofessionalism with which the SAA handled the matter. To aggravate things, there has been no word from the association since the incident occurred on June 26.

In addition, Yang said in a Facebook post last Thursday that the SAA's Sports & Development Manager, Ong Wan Xin, allegedly cut off communication with Yang when the latter contacted her regarding the upcoming SEA Games. 

You can view her post here:

We have made multiple attempts to contact Ho and various representatives for the SAA to no avail, but will update this article if they respond.

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Top images adapted from Rachel Isabel Yang's Facebook page.