TORQ owner Matt Hart is cycling from Land’s End to John o’Groats from 5th June, assisting the inspirational Dr William Tan, a hugely talented medical professional and hand cyclist from Singapore who has experienced such incredible adversity in his life.
Will and Matt have cycled from London to Paris to help beat blood cancer together on many occasions and have decided, along with 2 other dedicated friends (Peter and Alan) and the support of their driver Dave, to take on this huge challenge in an attempt to raise some significant awareness and sponsorship support for the charity Bloodwise who fund research into the treatment of blood cancer. Other friends and supporters will be joining them on stages of this journey too and we hope you toot your horn if you happen to pass them during their travels.
Will is the central motivation for this challenge and has a truly inspirational story to tell. He has fought adversity throughout his life and turned every negative event into a positive challenge. He is a celebrated Paralympian, Neuroscientist and Medical Director based in Singapore. He contracted Polio when he was 2 years old and has been unable to walk since and in 2009, he was diagnosed with stage 4 (end stage) Leukamia and given months to live. Dr William Tan is the most humble and kind hearted fellow you will ever meet and Matt is riding with Will to support him in every possible way throughout this challenge. As well as providing TORQ nutritional support throughout the 9-day ride, Will and Matt will be physically linking bikes during long climbs to ‘share their power’ and work together to ensure they get to John o’Groats and make a success of this very special event.
Dr William Tan personifies both passion and compassion. He contracted polio at the age of two and is paralysed from the waist down. Notwithstanding his disability, he has shown outstanding strength in overcoming adversities. From a kindergarten drop-out, he topped Selegie Primary School and went to Singapore’s Premier School, Raffles Institution on a Ministry of Education Scholarship for his Secondary and Junior College education. The National University of Singapore Alumnus who majored in Life Sciences joined the Civil Service after graduation in 1980. In pursuit of his dream to become a scientist and medical doctor, he ventured abroad for postgraduate studies in 1989. Holder of a First Class Honours in Physiology, this Harvard University’s Fulbright Scholar and Oxford University’s Chevening Scholar has also trained at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in USA.
Dr Tan is also an accomplished sportsman. An Asian-Pacific Games triple gold medalist, he has also competed in many international games including the 1988 Seoul Paralympics, the World Games as well as the Commonwealth Games. He holds six endurance marathon world records including the “Fastest time to complete Three marathons in Three Consecutive Days in Three countries”.
In 1987, he realised that, “winning medals, trophies or prize money should not be an end to itself. It should be a means to further goodness and to help people.” Since then, he has devoted to championing as well as fundraising for needy causes in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand, China, United States and the United Kingdom. He has skydived, water-skied, sailed and even climbed a 14-storey building to raise money. Some of his ultramarathon endeavours included wheelchair pushes across the length of New Zealand, Singapore to Penang, Thailand to Singapore, Boston to New York to Washington DC. He has helped raised more than $18 million on a voluntary basis for charities locally and internationally, over the last 22 years. Some of his humanitarian efforts include Polioplus for the worldwide eradication of polio and Operation Smile. He also serves in various organizations such as Chairman, Medical Board of Global Flying Hospitals, Chairman of the National Neurological Foundation and the Legacy Foundation.
On 6th April 2007, Dr Tan became the first person in the world to accomplish a marathon in a wheelchair in the North Pole in 21 hours and 10 mins despite overwhelming obstacles and extreme conditions of –25 degrees C to raise funds for Global Flying Hospitals.
On 19th December 2007, Dr Tan became the fastest person in the world to complete 7 marathons across 7 continents in 26 days, 17 hours, 43 minutes and 52 seconds to raise funds for international charities on 7 continents (including the National University of Singapore (NUS)’s Endowed Professorship in Paediatric Oncology). His amazing race took him to Antarctica, Chile, Egypt, Thailand, Japan, Kenya, Italy, England, New Zealand, and USA between November and December 2007.
He had also received widespread national and international recognition including the highest youth accolade, the Singapore Youth Award in 1995; Outstanding Young Persons of Singapore Award in 1996; the Outstanding Young Persons of the World Award (Humanitarian/ Voluntary Leadership) given by the Junior Chamber International, USA in 1997; the Commonwealth Youth Award for Excellence in Youth Work in 1998; the ASEAN Youth Award and the Public Service Medal in 2000. In 2003, he was honoured with the Reader’s Digest Inspiring Asian Award which “recognize deserving individuals who must be able to demonstrate that they have made a difference or are making a difference and are encouraging others to do so”. For his relentless contributions to his alma mater, he had been awarded the Distinguished Science Alumni Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award both of which by the National University of Singapore (2005), Nanyang Technological University (2009) and the University of Auckland (2014). In 2007, he was bestowed the prestigious Special Recognition Award and the Singapore National Day’s Public Service Star Award. In 2008, he was conferred the Singapore Disability Sports Council’s Sportsman of the Year and the FORTIS’ HERO Award. In 2010, he was named the second most trusted person in Singapore after the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
He is unstoppable. Diagnosed with Stage 4 (end-stage) leukemia in April 2009, he has turned adversities into opportunities. His cancer has become his cause. During his 6 months of toxic chemotherapy followed by bone marrow transplant, he championed for needy cancer patients who cannot afford the high cost of cancer treatment in Singapore.
He has turned his setback into a strong comeback. On 26 September 2010, he achieved his best time ever in para-cycling at the Berlin Marathon. One year after his bone marrow transplant, he accomplished two full marathons back to back on 7 and 14 November 2010 with finishing times better than his pre-leukemia days. On 5 December 2010, he won a gold medal at the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon’s 10 km event.
On 29 March 2014, together with NUS’ students and Staff, Alumni and NUS Deputy President, Professor Tan Eng Chye, he handcycled for 85 km in the RESILIENCE RUN to celebrate NUS’ Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, Dentistry and Science’s 85th Anniversary and to raise money for the ‘Enable’ Fund which supports NUS’ physically challenged students.
In 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 he handcycled from London to Paris over a distance of 500 km in four days to raise funds for lymphoma and leukemia research in USA, UK, New Zealand and Singapore. His battle against end-stage leukemia has been his longest and most painful race. It has transformed him into a more compassionate physician and invigorated him to dedicate his new lease of life to doing more for humanity.
His journey of resilience and reinventing oneself to scale greater heights in the face of adversity continues to inspire many individuals and corporate leaders.
To celebrate Singapore’s 50th Anniversary of Independence (SG50), he handcycled and ferried children in his chariot carrier for 50 hours continuously at Temasek Junior College to raise $50,000 to support the Straits Times’ School Pocket Fund and an orphanage in Thailand on 28th August 2015.
On 3 December 2015, he bravely made his comeback to wheelchair athletics (in 100m, 200m, 400m) after a lapse of 7 years (battling Stage 4 leukemia) to compete for Singapore at the South East Asian Games in Singapore. Photo below showing him (Number 5 on his helmet) giving his best at the age of 58 against counterparts 40 years younger.
Please please please help us to beat blood cancer by donating anything you can afford to Bloodwise and support our cause if you possibly can. No donation is too small:
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bloodwise-lejog
TORQ will be supplying a support vehicle and all of the energy products for this trip and all expenses will be taken care of by the participants. 100% of the money you donate will go to the Bloodwise charity.
How will we be fuelling ourselves and what products are TORQ likely to be supplying? More information on that later (and we’ll be giving you updates during the event as to what we’re actually doing), but if you want to understand what it takes to fuel oneself effectively for an event like this, give our Stage Race and Multi-Day Nutrition article a read.
UPDATE: Since this article was written, we produced this Fuelling for LEJOG article to explain precisely what we planned to do nutritionally and we stuck to it like glue! All of our calories, other than a small simple lunch and evening meal, came from TORQ Products and despite the terrible weather conditions we faced, we felt strong every day. We wouldn’t recommend the weather, but the fuelling and recovery nutrition worked brilliantly (we expected it to of course) 🙂
