At long last, Singapore broke its Olympic medal duck by beating South Korea 3-2 to reach the Olympic final. The win ensures that Singapore will at least finish with a Silver medal. To my friends from other countries, as pathetic as it sounds, Singapore had previously only won 1 Olympic medal (a silver to be exact) in its entire history. According the Wikipedia, by far the World’s most reliable source of information, Tan Howe Liang was our sole Olympic winner in the lightweight category for the clean and jerk. His silver medal sits “proudly” in the Singapore Sports Council museum, a testimony to the outstanding work that the sports leaders in the country have achieved :p.
While our table tennis players have performed magnificently to get us into the final, it is important to bear in mind that it also involved the sacrifice of developing local talent to achieve this goal. The quest for an Olympic medal for so many years was an obsession in itself with incentives of up to S$1 million for bringing home an Olympic gold. Is a medal really that important to us? Wouldn’t we rather see a talent developed locally from scratch win a medal? While we celebrate the victory, I’m sure that the vicarious achievement felt among Singaporeans would not be as strong as compared to somebody developed locally from our shores and that is to no fault of the girls who have done us proud.
Dan
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