Amanda Yap‘s transition from junior to senior gymnastics could not have been more dramatic.
At her debut World Championships in Jakarta in 2025, the then 15-year-old flew back to Singapore immediately after her qualification session on Monday, 20 October. With an end-of-year school exam waiting for her at home, and with no Singaporean having ever reached a Worlds final, Yap saw no reason to stay in Indonesia.
However, by the conclusion of the women’s two-day qualification period the following day, Yap had become the first gymnast from her nation to qualify for a Worlds final, as she made the balance beam final, due to take place on Saturday, 25 October.
“We weren’t going to stay because we were like, ‘OK, it’s not like we’re going to qualify anyway’, so we went back to take our exam,” Yap told Olympics.com prior to competing in the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, with the women’s artistic gymnastics competition starting on Tuesday (22 September).
“Then, the night before my exam, I found out that I actually got into finals, but I was already home at that time.
“Everyone was freaking out and I honestly don’t really remember much. I just remember my sister really helped me a lot because she tried to book my flight tickets (back to Indonesia) while I was busy studying for my exam.”
Thankfully, sister Emma Yap, also an international gymnast and also competing at the Asian Games in Japan, was happy to help in this most unusual turn of events.
So, after taking two maths papers, Yap was on her way back to Jakarta to compete in the final, which would pit her against the top seven beam workers in the world.
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READ MORE:https://www.olympics.com/en/news/asian-games-2026-amanda-yap-interview-gymnastics-beam
