DEFINING GREATNESS
Team Singapore concluded their 18-day Games campaign with 51 gold, 43 silver and 64 bronze medals. Eight Games records were set, along with 17 national records and 40 personal best milestones.
On the overall medal table, Singapore finished in sixth place. Vietnam topped the ranking.
As with any other edition of the Games, this one came with glorious triumphs and agonising losses.
Particularly painful was the performance of the men’s football team, after their fifth consecutive elimination in the group stages.
But hidden within the headlines, Singapore’s athletes have quietly defined greatness. Not just through their displays of sporting prowess, but also by their character and tenacity.
Some have battled not just opponents but injury. Fencer Elle competed with partial tear on her medial collateral ligament and an anterior cruciate ligament strain, while jiu-jitsu exponent Noah Lim took to the mat with a dislocated pinky finger.
Water polo player Eugene Teo took to the pool for Singapore despite still recovering from a training injury that resulted in nine stitches in his right eye just weeks before the Games. In between periods, Teo would clean that eye with antibiotics and saline solution.
So inspired was water polo captain Lee Kai Yang that he would do one more interview in the scorching hot sun because it was important to highlight the sacrifice of teammates such as Teo.
“No one is like him,” Lee told CNA after.