By the time most athletes hit their stride, Oliver Quentin Meech had already been counted out. As a child, he was the benchwarmer; uncoordinated, overlooked, and always the last pick in team sports. But there was one thing he had that couldn’t be taught: a deep, relentless love for movement.
“I just liked being outdoors and I didn’t like to study, so I just kept playing all kinds of sports to keep myself occupied,” Meech said. “It didn’t matter if I was good or not. I just didn’t want to go home.” With a single mother working three jobs, home was quiet and often lonely. He turned to sports – any sport – to fill the gaps. He wasn’t fast. He wasn’t strong. But he was always out there, sweating, moving, trying.
At 17, things started to click. He discovered Muay Thai and finally found something he was good at. But just as quickly, that dream was shelved when his mother forbade him from competing, thus he quit after almost three years. “I actually made it to the fight team and was all ready to compete, but my mum was against it, saying that I shouldn’t be wasting time on sports.”
The board life
Then came a serendipitous visit to the now-defunct Wave House (the flowboarding place previously at Sentosa) that changed everything. One ride on the board and he was hooked. “People there told me I had no talent,” Oliver recalled. “But I didn’t care, I was having too much fun.” He started working there part-time as a surf instructor so he could pay for his rides.
When national service came calling, Meech pressed pause on sports and when he came out, he pivoted to real estate in his pursuit for “a proper job”. He devoted himself to it and completely stopped all board sports.
However, the itch returned but Wave House had shut down by then, hence he headed to the Singapore Wake Park, the cable ski park at East Coast Park, instead. “I just needed to step on a board so I got into wakeskating and guess what? I qualified for the 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games!” Meech shared.
Unfortunately, that joy was short-lived because he tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and needed to undergo surgery for reconstruction. That meant having to give up his SEA Games slot, to his utmost disappointment.
New discovery
Three weeks after his operation, Meech tried wakesurfing and realised it did not hurt his knee. “I was over the moon because I found a sport that did not stress my knee. Wakesurfing has longevity and it’s something I can do for a very long time.”
A few months later, he even made the podium at the 2019 International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation (IWWF) Asian Men’s Open. He added, “That’s when I knew, this is what I’m meant to do. I want to do this till I’m 65.”
Still in real estate, he saved up to buy his own boat in 2021 but briefly after, an old dream resurfaced: to start his own surf school. That dream became Dreamwake Academy.
Four years on, Dreamwake is Singapore’s premier wakesurfing school, with three boats, a team of coaches, and a growing roster of students – many of whom now represent Singapore at the international level. But running a school and training competitively? That’s where things get complicated.
“There’s no off day, we are out on the water, we are out in the sun for long hours with no toilet breaks,” Meech said, sunburned and grinning. “If I’m not coaching, I’m fixing the boat. If I’m not fixing the boat, I’m training. And when I’m training, the business takes a hit.” Waking up at 5.45am every day, there are days that Meech stays back at the marina till 1am doing boat repairs.
“In the 1990s, Singapore led Asia in wake sports I want to bring us back there. One wave at a time.”
The cost of being competitive in wakesurfing is no joke – training five times a week racks up nearly S$9,000 a month in fees alone, not including the S$1,500 price tag of a board. And while Dreamwake helps fund some of that, it’s still a hustle. “We don’t have many places to train,” he shared. “We need more support. More space. More belief in the sport.”
But it’s bigger than him now. Through Dreamwake, Meech is shaping the next generation of wake surfers; kids who might have grown up like he did, searching for something to hold onto. And for them, he’s holding the door open.
This year, Meech is aiming to qualify for the SEA Games, to earn back the opportunity he had to let go six years ago. But above all of that, he said, “In the 1990s, Singapore led Asia in wake sports I want to bring us back there. One wave at a time.”
