More Reason To Be Proud
Laurentia Tan won 2 Equestrian bronze medals at the Paralympics. Swimmer Yip Pin Xiu won a Paralympic gold medal and rewrote two world records. They are both Singaporeans!
When both women arrived home, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan announced at the airport that swimmer Yip Pin Xiu and equestrian dressage rider Laurentia Tan will be conferred the Meritorious Service Medal and Public Service Medal, respectively. How nice.
But days before that, we were only aware that Pin Xiu will receive just 10 per cent of the $1 million that an able-bodied athlete will receive for an individual gold medal at the Olympics. Many Singaporeans, including our lovely NMP Eunice Olsen, have questioned our government over this disparity or inequality if you will.
“The cash awards given to the Olympians are not government-funded but from the private sector and Singapore Totalisator Board and they have had this scheme for several years,” said Mr Teo Ser Luck.
Frankly, that was quite a piece of news to me. I’ve always thought that our government was the one funding the Olympic monetary awards. At least the COE and ERP collections would be put to good use. But no, our government does not contribute. And if there were no contributions from the private sector at all, our disabled but full-blooded Singaporean athetes will get … a big pat on the back from the government.
But part of the fault really lies with Singaporean supporters like us. How many of us watched Laurentia’s event? How many of us watched Yip Pin Xiu in action? In fact, many of us only took interest in the 2 ladies after we’ve heard that they’ve won. And Pin Xiu won a gold medal for goodness sake. We skipped the anticipation stage and went straight to celebration. Even without all the fanfare and initial support, the 2 ladies went on to do us proud. We ought to feel ashamed of ourselves - especially the folks who give all kinds of excuses to deny them the same monetary rewatds that our foreign talent received.
