Singapore Breaks National Record With 82 Gold Medals
The 28th SEA Games comes to a close tomorrow (16 June), Singapore has broken previous medal records with 82 Golds, 72 Silvers and 99 Bronzes at press time.
That’s a whopping 253 medals.
Source
We come in second to Thailand, which has 87 Gold medals as of press time.
Tearing down old records
The highest number of gold medals Singapore previously even got close to was a 50 Gold record set in 1993.
Back then, swimmer Joscelin Yeo who chopped up the pool to win nine Gold medals, which included 7 individual and 2 relay races. She still holds the record for winning the most number of gold medals in the Southeast Asian Games, with 40 gold medals over a span of eight SEA Games from 1991-2003.
Athletes build new records with their blood, sweat and tears
2015 turned out to be even more spectacular. Singapore claimed its 51st Gold of this SEA Games last Tuesday when swimmer Quah Zheng Wen dominated the pool to win the men’s 400m individual medley.
21 swimming GOLD for Singapore! Quah Zheng Wen wins the 50m backstroke. His 11th medal of #SEAGames2015 pic.twitter.com/ZmKua6Rdqq
— Jack Board (@JackBoard) June 11, 2015
Quah Zheng Wen competed in 12 events over six days and won a medal in every one of them, seven Golds, four Silvers and one Bronze. Singapore zipped its way from 51 Gold medals to the 80th Gold medal. On Sunday (15 June), Singaporean pencak silat athlete Muhammad Nur Alfian brought home the 80th Gold in the Men’s Tanding (match) Class F after he beat his Vietnamese counterpart and current world champion, Tran Dinh Nam with a score of 5-0. Nur Alfian cried while the national anthem was played during his victory ceremony, as he claimed Singapore’s first and only Gold medal in Pencak Silat during the 28th SEA Games.
SEA Games pencak silat: Singapore’s Muhammad Nur Alfian wins goldSEA GAMES 2015 pencak silat: TEARS OF JOY for Team Singapore’s Muhammad Nur Alfian Juma’en, after he won the gold medal in the Men’s Tanding Class F Final, beating Vietnam with a score of 5-0.For more Games action: cna.asia/seagameslive
Posted by Channel NewsAsia Singapore on Sunday, 14 June 2015
Nur Alfian’s triumph despite his badly bleeding foot epitomised the spirit of the Games.
Singapore’s glory to gold well deserved
Some of the 82-and-counting Gold medals were expected, others were total surprises.
Shanti Pereira amazed Singapore when she blazed her way in the women’s 200m sprint to be the first female Singapore sprinter to win a SEA Games Gold medal since Glory Barnabas did in 1973.
Then there were sports where we expected Gold medals but did not get any.
The women’s table tennis singles crashed out. Singapore’s football team got kicked out of the competition after loosing out to Indonesia 1-0. Coach Aide Iskandar resigned after the team’s failure.
But there is no doubt in the athletes have made Singapore proud, with or without medals around their necks. More than the glory of gold, they have shown the glory of sportsmanship to the international area watching the Games for the past week.
After all, all that glitters is not gold.
Team Singapore, well done.
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Featured image via Joseph Schooling, TODAY sports, Shanti Pereira
With references from SEA Games, Channel News Asia, The Straits Times, Channel News Asia
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