The Lion Roar

I woke up early this morning in anticipation of Joseph Schooling's 100m Butterfly event at the Rio Olympics. Most of Singapore was probably doing the same thing. Our little island's hope of winning its first ever gold medal. It reminded me of an old black and white picture that my late mom showed me when I was very young. It was a picture of the whole "kampung" of poor relatives sending off my mom's cousin to study in Australia on the Colombo scholarship. That man represented the hopes and dreams of his extended family, doing something that nobody else in that picture would ever dream of doing in their own lifetimes. Joseph Schooling was about to do the same for all of us in Singapore. That's why it feels like we've all won. 

The more I think about it, the more blown away I am with the victory. This wasn't in some obscure sports.  This was swimming - a hugely popular sport, dominated by a handful of western countries.  He was swimming against the very best in the world and had the pressure of Michael Phelps swimming right next to him. I was perfectly okay for him not to have won. The whole world would have understood, and Singapore would have understood. Getting into a swimming event finals was historic. Taking silver or bronze would have been a big bonus. Bringing home the gold was a confusing idea because we just haven't done it before. But Joseph was defiant. He was set to defeat the Goliaths lined up against him.

What an exciting race. Joseph finishing almost a full body length ahead of 3 swimming giants - Michael Phelps, Chas le Clos and Laszio Cseh. A new Olympics record and apparently it was the fastest time ever swam post the LZR Racer swimwear era. 50.39 seconds. A 50+ seconds that took a lifetime of handwork, pain, disappointments, frustrations and mental strength. How sweet a victory. And so for the very first time, Majulah Singapura was played in an Olympics prize giving ceremony. Surreal. 

Joseph's victory challenges our thinking about talent at so many levels. As a society, we need to work hard on broadening our definition of excellence and success. We need to make the right amount of investments to produce a talent crop that has world class ambitions. We need to hire the best coaches from anywhere in the world, whilst training local coaches to be world class. We need to stop being wishy washy about granting full exemptions from National Service for our top talents. We need to do all we can, whatever we can, to remove barriers that disadvantage our local talents, because the winning margin is in hundredth of a second. Singapore has world class mentality in so many things, they it has paid off handsomely. We need to do the same for sports and the arts.

Today the Lion's roar was resounding. 
Majulah Singapura!