Hundreds of people take to the ice every weekend at The Rink @ JCube, but just what is it that makes this winter sport so popular in tropical Singapore?

Ever eager to pick up a new sport, our editorial team paid a visit to JCube recently to meet up with the adorable Lea Ong, an 8-year-old figure skater, whose enthusiasm for the sport puts us adults to shame. 

When asked to teach us some of the basics to ice skating and figure skating, the cheerful Henry Park Primary School student duly obliged, and we were lucky to have our video cameras ready. If you would like to pick up ice skating, learn some of the essentials by watching our ICE SKATING FOR BEGINNERS video here below.



Lea tells us that she comes to The Rink@JCube, Singapore's only Olympic-sized skating rink, at 5am on weekday mornings. That means she is usually up by 4.15am. Just who in their right mind is up at this ungodly hour you might ask? Well, Lea is one of just a few, with the others mainly being skaters from Team Singapore, Singapore's national figure and speed skating team.

 

Watch Lea demonstrate some of the more common figure skating techniques here in the second video of the series, FIGURE SKATING FOR BEGINNERS.

 

In a separate interview with RedSports, Lea told the journalist "I like ice skating because when I go for competitions, I get medals."