Soh rui yong made a post on this. He brings up many good points on funding here vs other countries.
16h ·
This morning, the news reported that SNOC Secretary General Mark Chay called on Singapore Athletics to “join the party” and win more gold medals. Singapore Athletics Vice-President Marinda Teo has responded via a Facebook post as follows:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BhMdT4nrY/?mibextid=wwXIfr
The reality is that we as Singapore are sending a bunch of full-time students, software engineers, teachers, government employees, and corporate workers to compete against the likes of:
Puripol Boonson of Thailand: Full-time professional athlete sponsored by Nike, CP Group, Athletic Association of Thailand and other corporate brands. Not to mention, a 19-year old global generational talent. He won the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m.
Kieran Tuntivate of Thailand: Thai-American brought up as an athlete in the USA. Professional runner for Nike Bowerman Track Club. Would be a top runner in the USA should he have chosen to represent the USA. He won the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m.
Robi Syanturi of Indonesia: Full-time athlete sponsored by ASICS and Indonesia Athletics Federation. Trained in Kenya for 3 months leading into SEA Games. He won the marathon.
Nguyen Thi Oahn of Vietnam: Full-time athlete sponsored by the Vietnam Athletics Federation. She won the 3,000m steeplechase, 5,000m and 10,000m.
Singapore’s top performer was Shanti Pereira. A full-time athlete sponsored by Nike, our government’s spexscholarship, and some other corporations. A generational talent. She won the 100m and 200m.
I compete at the SEA Games while studying for my MBA and running my own business as an entrepreneur. I could go on and on but you reading this probably get the point by now.
Singapore has the resources to fund a proper high performance athletics program if this country wants to, but those resources don’t seem to be flowing in to the sport. Till then, don’t expect to win many gold medals bringing knives to a gun fight.
Full credit to all our gold medalists in other sports. But unlike sailing, swimming and the like, where Singapore competes against countries much poorer than us in GDP per capita, athletics ain’t a rich man’s sport. Competition is deeper and comes fast and furious from more sources and directions.
Case in point: Timor Leste fields 2022 SEA Games double silver medalist Felisberto De Deus as a medal threat in the 5,000m and 10,000m. They don’t have a competitive swimmer who is a medal threat.
Anyway, at the Games, the priority is promoting the Olympic values like sportsmanship, friendship and respect. And developing athletes as people holistically by teaching them to face pressure, execute plans, and handle the result whether or not it goes their way. Fixating on medal count to me is not a holistic way of measuring success at the Games.