Paris 2024 and the making of an Olympian

What would you expect from a doorstop with a Team Singapore athlete who just won her first match at the 2024 Paris Olympics?

Perhaps a snapshot of her jubilance, after years-long preparations? Or some insight into how she defeated her opponent?

Badminton queen Yeo Jia Min did none of that. Instead of focusing on herself, she paid tribute to her competitor, Dorsa Yavarivafa, an Iran-born player competing under the Refugee Olympic Team flag who fled Tehran in 2018. The Singaporean shone the spotlight on the massive obstacles facing athletes like her.

“I really respect these players who come from backgrounds that are not so conducive for their sport... she still kept her dream, and making it to the Olympics must have been massive for her.??

“Players like her don’t have a whole system set up for them... they count on their own determination to make things happen and this is something we can learn from,”? Ms Yeo says.

The message that came through? Something that Olympic swimmer Anthony Erin once said: Don’t write anybody off. Don’t underestimate how much every athlete has gone through.

The Olympics is a long slog, a test of body, spirit and more. It’s a four-year journey to execute a two-second dive on a precise day, as my colleague Rohit Brijnath once highlighted. “This is the terrifying pressure of perfection,” he writes in a recent Opinion piece.

Just look at how much goes into getting more from every sprint by Shanti Peirera.

It’s hard to understate the high stakes and the heartbreak that follows from falling off the sporting cliff. Stealing from Rohit here again: A millisecond too slow, a millimetre too wide and a medal is lost. The only balm after losing it all and facing a barrage of criticism? The embrace of family.

In Paris, the reality is the Olympic Games did not start off on the best footing - the opening ceremony was marred in controversy, and there was a tiny ruckus after organisers refused to install air-conditioning in a push towards sustainability.

But some perspective here might help. The Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, struggled to get under way beneath the shadow of a deadly Covid-19 pandemic. It was an event of joyless silence, with no spectators and everyone there on edge, especially the Japanese citizens who protested its staging.?

It’s hot in Paris. But the heat shouldn’t distract. Right now, Team Singapore has settled in - and they’re just getting started.

You can find the schedules, results and the Straits Times’ coverage of Team Singapore at the Olympics here.

Meanwhile, here are my picks of the weeks to get yours started.

Cheers,

Suling Lin, Senior columnist

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