By Liew Hanqing

SHE was delighted when her older brother decided to pick up taekwondo, a sport she had enjoyed for seven years.

But last Sunday, Vivian Tan, 16, witnessed a tragic accident that claimed her brother's life during a taekwondo competition.

Vincent Tan, 17, fell into a coma and died in hospital after being kicked on the neck while sparring with his opponent.

Vivian, who had been scheduled to compete later that day, had been rooting for her brother.

She told The New Paper last night at her brother's wake: 'He was sparring with an opponent within the same weight range, but the other boy looked fitter than my brother. He was tall and quite sporty-looking.'

The competition at the Kampong Kembangan Community Club was jointly organised by the Kampong Ubi-Kembangan Citizens Consultative Committee and the Greenville Residents' Committee, and supported by the Singapore Taekwondo Gymnasium.

Vincent's opponent, she said, apparently held a brown belt, which indicated a higher skill grade than her brother's green belt.

Blue belt

However, a Singapore Taekwondo Gymnasium spokesman told Lianhe Wanbao that Vincent had recently received a blue belt, which allowed him to spar with his opponent.

Vivian said that she saw the opponent kick her brother in the neck. Vincent then adjusted his helmet but collapsed.

Vivian recalled that at the time, she did not realise the severity of what had happened.

She said: 'I thought it was just a normal knock-out. But when my brother did not wake up after more than five minutes, I panicked.'

Their childhood friend, Ow Mei Poh, 18, was also present when the accident happened.

She recalled: 'I was helping out at the competition when I heard that Vincent had collapsed. When I looked at him, he was already on the floor. I knew it was bad because his hands had turned pale.'

Vivian said her brother decided to pick up the sport because he was bored at home when she went for her taekwondo practice with their friends.

She said: 'There were about seven of us who were enthusiastic about taekwondo, so he decided to join us.'

Vincent's older sister, Madam Dwie Indah, 24, said her brother had taken up the sport mainly as a form of exercise.

She said: 'He wasn't going all out to win trophies. He wasn't that competitive.'

Her brother, she said, was more passionate about computer-related stuff.

She said: 'He was excited when he got into the information technology course at Nanyang Polytechnic. He worked really hard, and his lecturer just told us that he had done well for his recent tests.'

He also liked playing computer games, especially Counterstrike, Madam Dwie said.

'He liked playing games with guns in them,' she said.

She added that he was a filial son. He took on a part-time job to ease the family's financial load when their father became paralysed after a stroke about eight years ago.

'Earlier this year, he worked at a convenience store to make some extra cash. He worked long hours, sometimes up to 11pm,' she said.

But he never complained, she added.

Their mother, Madam Nur Julia, 50, echoed these sentiments.

Sobbing uncontrollably, she recalled how Vincent had helped her take care of her late husband after his stroke while she juggled two jobs as a hawker and cleaner to make ends meet.

She said in Mandarin: 'He helped to change his father's clothes, bathe him and clean him. He never complained about the hard work, or about it being dirty. He was such a good boy.'

Pointing to a ramp linking the living room to the washing area, Madam Nur Julia said Vincent had built it so it would be easier to move his father around in his wheelchair in the flat.

She said: 'He bought cement and stayed up through the night to build it.'

After his father died last October, Vincent promised his mother to take care of her 'forever'. She said: 'He told me he did not want to get married, because he wanted to take care of me. He said he would get a good job and buy me a nice house, and that I wouldn't ever have to worry again.'

Madam Dwie said her mother had initially been apprehensive about Vincent taking up taekwondo.

'My mother asked him not to compete because she was worried, but after she watched one of the training sessions and saw that it wasn't that violent, she became more agreeable to it.'

But now the family wants to know how the accident happened.

Said Madam Nur Julia: 'I want to know why my son was allowed to fight with somebody with a brown belt.'

This article was first published in The New Paper