Tay Chin Joo

Early life and education Tay was born on 12 May 1955 at Kandang Kerbau Hospital in Singapore. She stayed for a period in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with her family when she was young. Tay studied at Methodist Girls' School from 1962 to1971 and then at Anglo-Chinese School for pre-university education. Tay graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree (summa cum laude ) from Arizona State University & subsequently attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where she obtained her master's degree in Business Administration, majoring in finance.

Swimming career Tay learned to swim when her family was living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. When Tay was six years old, she started competing in diving and swimming competitions with her brother and sisters at the Royal Selangor Golf Club.

At her last SEAP games outing in 1971, Tay had her best results with four gold medals at the 100m and 200m butterfly events, Freestyle Relay and Medley Relay events and a silver medal at the 200m individual medley event.

Tay also represent Singapore at the 1971 Hapoel Games.

In 1972, Tay was the only Singaporean swimmer to qualify for the 100 meters butterfly event at the 1972 Munich Olympics. She failed to qualify from her heat.

Tay was Vice President (Synchronised Swimming) at the Singapore Swimming Association for 8 years. Her story of bringing the national synchronised swimming team was told in an interview for the illustrated reference book "Great Lengths: Singapore's Swimming Pools".

Personal life Tay has three siblings who are also national athletes for Singapore; Tay Boon Tiong Winston (swimming and water polo), Tay Chin Hong Nora (springboard diving), Tay Chin Say Molly (swimming).