Asian Games 2026: Cyclist Valencia Tan rides to honour mum’s sacrifices

For eight years, Super Star Original Famous Penang Laksa was a popular fixture at the People’s Park Food Centre.

Loyal diners flocked to the stall run by Phua Yoke Phek, locals and tourists sharing table space as they tucked into steaming bowls of her Penang assam laksa.

One local food blog called it “slurp-worthy”, while another included it on its list of Singapore’s best assam laksa.

But the shutters came down for good in May 2025, when Phua traded her ladles and bowls for the driver’s seat of a taxi. 

The single mother made the career change so that she would have time and the flexibility to ferry her daughter, national cyclist Valencia Tan, to and from training. 

Ahead of Tan’s Asian Games debut in the women’s omnium and Madison road race events, Phua, 59, said: “Of course I miss the shop but I do not regret it because I want to support my daughter’s dream to go to the Olympics.

“Running a hawker stall is not easy because it is long hours and I was not able to help her much. But as a taxi driver, I drive her to the gym, to training or any of her appointments. Carrying the bike everywhere is not easy for her on her own. Doing this job also means that I can cook for her, buy her food and groceries that she will need for her nutrition.

“It’s her hobby, her dream. I want to do whatever I can to support it.”

Her love for her 21-year-old daughter is apparent in their Bidadari HDB flat. Photos of Tan’s SEA Games debut in 2025 in Bangkok, where she won a silver medal, and her competing at the recent Commonwealth Games line the fridge door and walls.

Inspired by her twin brother Sachin, who was born just two minutes after her, Tan took up cycling as a hobby in 2021 after seeing how much he enjoyed the sport. She started off cycling at East Coast Park and soon transitioned into riding on the roads. Not long after, she was selected for the national team.

As her interest grew, she swopped her Decathlon bike – which was passed down by her aunt – for a $2,000 second-hand road bike. In 2023, Tan asked her mum if she could buy a better “race-level” bike. Though initially shocked by the $16,000 price tag, Phua borrowed the funds from friends for the professional-grade S-Works bike, a debt she has since fully repaid.

Knowing how much her mother has given up to support her sporting ambitions, Tan is determined to honour that faith by giving everything she has on the bike.

“Of course, I know how lucky I am to be able to have my mother support me in my ambitions, and it motivates me every day, in every training and race,” said Tan, a first-year business student at the Singapore Management University.

“Hopefully I can make it to the Olympics one day so that I can repay all that she has done for me to have a chance at this.”