Team Singapore’s monumental effort for Olympic glory
The Eiffel Tower was almost never built.
When its blueprint was first unveiled, the structure was derided as “useless and monstrous” and described as a “truly tragic street lamp” by writers, painters, sculptors and architects, who sent a petition against it in 1887.
At the time, no structure stood taller than 200 metres, but Gustave Eiffel had the audacity to try and build a 300m tower.
Today, the Eiffel Tower is a proud symbol of France and an iconic backdrop for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The Iron Lady, the first building to exceed 305m, remains one of the biggest attractions in Paris, drawing seven million visitors annually.
Like how the monument was once thought impossible and impractical, there was a time when few Singaporeans dared to dream about making it to the Olympics, let alone win a gold medal.
With a population of under a million then, Singapore made its Olympic debut as a British colony at London 1948 with its sole representative, fireman Lloyd Valberg. He finished joint-14th out of 27 high jumpers with a 1.8m leap.
The French saying “imaginer c’est choisir” – which translates to “to imagine is to choose” – encourages people to turn their fantasy into reality, which is a notion Singaporean weightlifter Tan Howe Liang subscribed to.
At Rome 1960, lifting iron as the Eiffel Tower workers did, the 1.6m clerk-cum-mechanic defiantly rejected treatment for his aching legs to make a final push in the men’s lightweight event. With an almighty heave in the clean and jerk, he recorded a total of 380kg to claim a silver and Singapore’s first Olympic medal.
As sport made its transition into professionalism, the Republic continued to mould its sporting identity to compete at the highest level.
Just as towers are painstakingly constructed – the Eiffel Tower was built with 18,038 metallic pieces and 2.5 million rivets at a cost of about US$1.5 million, which would be about US$50 million today (S$67.3m) – building an athlete also requires time and cost.
Swimmer Joseph Schooling’s parents mortgaged their house, spent $1 million and invested valuable time to support his sporting dreams.
After training with homemade drag chutes invented by his father, and then with top swim coaches Sergio Lopez and Eddie Reese, he delivered Singapore’s crowning moment when he beat his idol, American legend Michael Phelps, to win the 100m butterfly final at Rio 2016 for the nation’s first Olympic gold.
Against all odds, Singapore managed to top an Olympic podium ahead of countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia, who all have a richer sport culture and larger budgets.
With one gold, two silvers and two bronzes, it sits 98th out of 153 territories that have won Olympic medals according to online database Olympedia. Not bad for an island nation of six million people.
A barren Tokyo 2020 was a reminder that Olympic silverware does not come easy, and Team Singapore will try again to mine for medals at Paris 2024 with 23 athletes who have spent years honing their art to produce a vintage performance and masterpiece on sports’ biggest stage.
The history books show remarkable black-and-white photos of the Eiffel Tower taking shape layer by layer. Likewise, a new crop of Singaporean athletes now stand on the shoulders of giants – Schooling, Tan, table tennis players Feng Tianwei, Li Jiawei and Wang Yuegu – to achieve greater heights.
Like how each piece of the tower was specifically designed and traced to an accuracy of 0.1mm, and how the curvature of its uprights was calculated to offer the most efficient wind resistance, modern sportsmen and their support teams pore over data and employ sports science for marginal gains and maximum impact to deliver their best performance.
Sport is their craft and, as we count down to the July 26-Aug 11 Paris Olympics, over the next six days The Straits Times will explore the finer details of Team Singapore’s art and how they tee up for success, kick into gear, and catapult into the final stretch.
Some, like kitefoiler Maximilian Maeder, will be going for gold as a teenage sensation and two-time world champion. Former badminton world champion Loh Kean Yew is an underdog for a medal. Others, while not expected to make the podium, will hunt for national records and personal bests.
Wise beyond his 17 years, Max said: “Thinking of any medals and expectation management issues that others may have, does not make me faster around the course. Making the right moves at the right time does.”
It is a mentality Eiffel would have been proud of, and so, while in France, Team Singapore will do as the French do – dare to dream, act on their aspirations and go on to wow the world.
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