Eight-year-old Chloe Chua stepped into Festival International des Sports Extremes (FISE) Singapore with her bubbly personality and steady confidence. She was part of the festival’s spine-ramp showcase at *SCAPE, gearing up alongside some of the biggest names in urban sports, including global star Ryan Williams, a multi-time X Games and Nitro World Games medallist.
Many young skaters would be fazed in a moment like that. Chua wasn’t. She simply clipped her helmet, steadied her stance and got ready to skate, treating the noise and scale of the event like just another day on wheels.
The Start of Her Journey
Her journey started when she was three, watching her mother and friends skate while she rode her strider bike.
Chua said, “At that time, I was only three, and I found it a bit interesting.”
That small spark turned into hours at the skatepark. One evening, her coach, Lucas Ng, noticed her weaving through the park with natural control far beyond her years. Ng recalled: “Her body awareness was really good. She knows how to control all her turns and all her jumps.”
The 37-year-old approached her mother, offered to guide her, and has been coaching her ever since.
Fearless At Eight
Chua’s fearlessness didn’t appear overnight. It was shaped in moments that would shake even seasoned riders. The biggest came last month at FISE Shanghai. During her warm-up, as she was lining up her drop-in, a BMX rider suddenly cut across her path.
She said, “I got shocked, and I hit the edge of the rim.”
The fall was serious. She was rushed to the hospital, treated and sent home to rest. She ended up with 15 stitches in total, nine of them along her chin. While most kids would still be recovering the next day, Chua asked to go back to practice.
“I feel proud of myself because my mother said to cancel all the competitions because she was more scared than me. But I wanted to just try a different line. Instead of the big drum, I just went onto the platform before dropping in the rim.”
Two days after the fall, she competed in the junior freestyle park event and finished 7th out of 19 competitors.
The ranking told one story, but her reaction to the fall was more telling.
Her Driving Force
Chua skates because she enjoys the rush. Competing still makes her feel “a bit excited and nervous at the same time”, but she embraces it and rolls with it.
She also likes the creative side of skating. Cash-for-tricks is her favourite format, mainly because, as she says, “I use them (the money) to buy Pokémon cards.”
Her playful approach to skating doesn’t reflect how serious she is about getting better. Chua trains nearly every day for two to six hours, and has already entered more than 20 competitions and collected over 40 medals. During school holidays, she trains in South Korea with her other coach, Kevin Lee.
For someone her age, the mix of confidence, grit and discipline is uncommon, and it’s a big part of why she stands out both on and off the ramp.
Ng said, “I think what is special about her is that she has a very strong character, where she will not give up. She will have a meltdown once in a while, but at the end of the day, she knows she wants to land it (a trick), she wants to perfect it, and she will keep trying. On days when she is tired, she will take a break and go again. At the end of the day, we will always end on a good one.”
The Biggest Stage on Home Soil
That same mindset carried into FISE Singapore, where the world’s largest urban sports festival made its debut on home ground. The event was staged by Hurricane and Kin Productions as part of the Singapore Urban Sports + Fitness Festival.
Over the weekend, Chua not only performed in showcases but also competed. In the junior “best line” rollerblading event, she placed second – a strong result for the youngest competitor in the field and a sign of how quickly she’s learning to hold her own against older riders.
The Road Ahead
Ng has seen Chua fall, reset, and try countless times again, and he says that persistence is why he doesn’t set limits on her growth.
“I wouldn’t put a ceiling as of now. She has been doing tricks beyond what I would imagine her to be doing a year ago. And knowing that she is always evolving, always improving, amazes me that I think she is going to grow even better from here.
“My goal for her is to really just have fun and enjoy the sport. For me, it is to basically create a pathway for her and see how far she wants to go.”
When asked when she thinks she might ever stop skating, Chua didn’t hesitate to answer, with a huge grin on her face: “Maybe when I become a world champion!”
