2016 is only seven and a half months, when millions of people around the world have witnessed the greatest sports achievement in Singapore’s history.
Day: Friday, August 12. Venue: Olympic Water Sports Ground, Rio de Janeiro. It was the men’s 100m butterfly swimming final at the Olympics in Brazil.
Michael Phelps was the favorite to win it all. Americans are by far the most equipped Olympic athletes, he wanted to exit from his last Olympic Games, in his neck once again shiny gold medal.
Singapore 21-year-old miracle boy, Joseph School, the day there are other ideas. He needs only 50.39 seconds – a national, Asian and Olympic record, first done on a crowded planet. This sensational feat downgraded his childhood hero Phelps, as well as Laszlo Cseh and Chuckle Clos, the silver tie of three silver.
Several Singaporeans – glued to their television screens thousands of miles back home – broke out in joy when the school touched home to catch the Republic’s first Olympic gold medal.
A big debate ensued as to whether Paralympians and Olympians should receive the same monetary rewards. For the record, Olympians get S$1 million for a gold, S$500,000 for a silver and S$250,000 for a bronze. Paralympians, however, get S$200,000, S$100,000 and S$50,000 respectively. Kudos to to Yip and Goh – both also Sports Excellence scholars – for insisting that they are not swimming for the sake of money. Instead, their biggest wish is to have greater visibility and acceptance, and to be regarded as on a par with their able-bodied counterparts.
Another famous Singaporean Olympian, paddler Feng Tianwei, made the headlines in 2016 for both the right and wrong reasons.
In October, the Singapore Table Tennis Association gave the 30-year-old the boot from the national team, a move that sent shockwaves throughout Singapore’s sports realm. The official reason by the association was that Feng did not fit into its plans for rejuvenation.
There were other tales swirling around, that of Feng having a lack of respect for authority, making false reimbursement claims, and causing disputes over prize money.
The world No 6 didn’t let the controversy affect her too much. Just six weeks after her sacking, she stunned the Olympics champion and world’s top player Ding Ning at the Chinese Table Tennis Super League – the highest-level of league competition in the sport in China.
Feng’s joy was shortlived. Days later, she crashed out of the International Table Tennis Federation World Tour Grand Finals following a shock loss to Japanese teenager Miu Hirano in the first round.
In terms of large-scale events, Singapore hosted another successful round of the Formula 1 night race in September and the BNP Paribas Women’s Tennis Association Finals in October. Several of the major banks also staged their respective events throughout the year. Among them: DBS held its fifth Marina Regatta in April, OCBC organised its second OCBC Cycle in October, while Standard Chartered celebrated the 15th anniversary of its marathon in December.
It was a mixed year for the Singapore Sports Hub, the S$1.3 billion facility in Kallang where many of the country’s sporting events are held.
The National Stadium was the venue for this year’s National Day Parade for the first time in a decade, while Madonna and Jay Chou came to town for sold-out concerts that were marred by complaints of the poor sound system.
The 55,000-seater stadium didn’t stage as many football matches as fans would have liked. The national football team played just once there all year, a friendly match with Causeway rivals Malaysia in October that ended in a limp 0-0 draw.
One of the highlights for the Sports Hub was its three Community Play Days, which saw tens of thousands of people flock to its various venues to experience a slew of sporting and family-oriented activities.
The Hub’s calendar for 2017 is fast shaping up with a number of big musical acts already on the confirmed list. Coldplay’s two dates on March 31 and April 1 are long sold out, as are Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung’s three shows at the Indoor Stadium.
The months of March, April and May will see plenty of rugby action from the Super Rugby championship and Rugby 7s. There’s talk that Spanish football club Valencia could play a pre-season game in the summer, but what would really light up the venue is a glamour fixture involving the English Premier League’s biggest teams.
Singapore could also see its final Grand Prix in September 2017 as that is the last edition on the current contract. The event has been a mainstay on the F1 calendar since 2008 and it it is still uncertain whether the world’s only night race has a future in the Lion City as renewal talks continue.
This article was first published on Dec 24, 2016.
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