Josiah Ng

Olympian

Josiah Ng is a three-time Olympian (Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012) and the first Malaysian cyclist to reach an Olympic final. Over his career he became world number one, won keirin gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and earned medals at four Asian Games. After retiring in 2015, he coached Thailand's track cycling team and guided Jai Angsuthasawit, then ranked outside the world's top 50, to keirin gold at the 2018 Asian Games. In July 2026, he launched The Olympian Academy, a microlearning platform that uses Olympians' real stories to teach leaders, teenagers and their families soft skills like resilience, adaptability and turning pressure into performance.

In this episode, Josiah takes us back to finishing last in his first race at 15, and to leaving home on his 18th birthday to chase cycling. He recalls returning to Malaysia at 19 and sitting through a seven-hour meeting at Majlis Sukan Negara to earn a tryout. He also shares how he came back from a crash 16 weeks before the Athens Olympics, and how learning to sing Negaraku helped him "prepare to get lucky" on the way to Commonwealth gold. Finally, he opens up about the 11 years it took to find his second calling after sport. He also explains why he believes adaptability and storytelling matter more than memorisation in an AI world, and why parents should let their children fail.