By: Yoong Siew Wah
The fantastic achievement of Joseph Schooling in winning a Gold Medal in the 100 metre butterfly swimming event at the Rio Olympics has brought a supreme reputation and prestige to Singapore in the history of the Olympics. Singapore, especially PM Lee Hsien Loong and his ministers, have shown superb gratitude in according Joseph Schooling the supreme honour that has never been given to any athlete or artist in the past. The whole of Singapore is in ecstatic celebration in his honour and Joseph Schooling could not have been oblivious to all the adulations that have been poured on him.
In all these frenzied exuberances would it not be prudent that a rational thought be given to the sensitivity of Joseph Schooling in having to face the future? He has been lifted so high on the pedestal of fame that we may be overdoing it so that there would be no consolation, but devastation, if he could not win any gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Of course, in the midst of all these celebrations, it could not have occurred in his mind.
True to their character, the PAP leaders are never slow in their haste to claim credit for the global honour to Singapore that Joseph Schooling has brought. Apart from granting Joseph Schooling a deferment for national service to enable him to train for the Olympics, it was left entirely to the parents of Schooling to finance his training, especially his mother May Schooling. They had spent more than a million dollars for his training and the Singapore Government is not known to have made any financial contribution to it. In fact the people who should claim credit for Schooling’s gold medal achievement should be his wonderful parents, his equally wonderful American trainers and the American Government.
Joseph Schooling is a genuine local born swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal for Singapore, unlike the mercenary women paddlers from China that the somnolent PAP Government brought in at great expense to the taxpayers with the hope that they would win gold medals for Singapore at the Olympics. They were all second-rate players trained by China who were only too happy to foist them on Singapore so that they could have an affluent livelihood with the easy money they get from the Singapore Government.
It should not surprise the PAP leaders if they could not win any Olympic gold medal for they were more interested in acquiring wealth. Due to the PAP’s lax policy, they became permanent residents (PR) over time and became eligible to purchase HDB flats which they sold in the lucrative re-sale market at great profits when they returned to China. With the exchange rate in China, they became affluent overnight.
The latest antic is the shameful defeat of the mercenary Singapore paddlers by an unflattering Japanese team at the Rio Olympics for a bronze medal. Do Singaporeans feel that they have been shortchanged by the PAP leaders?
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Republished from Mr Yoong’s blog, ‘Singapore Recalcitrant‘.
Mr Yoong (who is in his late eighties) was the Director of Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) from 1971 to 1974. He was Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in the 1960s, and had a distinguished career in the Singapore Special Branch in the 1950s.