SEA Games: Focus back on Asia for Singapore

SINGAPORE — Fittingly, the 84th and final gold medal won by hosts Singapore at the 28th SEA Games was secured by the national men’s water polo team.

But while his team celebrated a record-extending 26th consecutive gold medal after beating Indonesia 15-10 in their final round-robin group match at the OCBC Aquatic Centre on the final day of the SEA Games today (June 16), Singapore national coach Lee Sai Meng revealed that their top priority would be to become the fourth-best team in Asia.

The former national player stressed that today’s win had to be put into perspective, and that it will still be some time before the Republic can replicate their regional dominance on the Asian stage.

With several other tournaments on the horizon, including the Asian Championships in Tokyo as well as the pre-Olympic qualifiers at the end of the year, Lee added he will have to re-evaluate his team before planning for their coming challenges.

“Our players are not full-time professionals,” said Lee, a multiple SEA Games gold medallist himself. “Now that this SEA Games is over, we must plan for the next cycle. We have to see who can commit, before deciding how to approach the other tournaments.

“I think our performance at the SEA Games shows we are still up there in the region, but it also reminds us we cannot be complacent and we’ll be training hard to improve ourselves. Our immediate target would be to become the fourth-best team in Asia, because we were very close to matching South Korea at the Asian Games. But it’ll still be awhile before we can match the powerhouses in Asia because they are all professionals.”

Today’s win also meant Singapore’s 749-strong athlete contingent finished the 28th SEA Games with a total of 259 medals from 36 sports, the most medals won by any of the 11 participating countries.

But the Republic were made to work for it by a gutsy Indonesian side that drew level at 4-4 midway through the second quarter. However, captain Eugene Teo, 27, said: “It doesn’t signify that our regional rivals like Indonesia are catching up with us in terms of standards. After all, we managed to win by a five-goal margin even though this wasn’t our best performance.”

The focus now returns to working towards also becoming competitive on the Asian, and eventually world stage for Singapore.

Singapore's best performance in water polo at the Asian games was a gold in 1954. And at last year’s Asiad in Incheon, the Republic finished fifth out of seven teams, winning just two of their five matches played.

Nonetheless, plans are already afoot to increase the standard of future water polo players in Singapore, including the introduction of Flippa Ball — a modified junior version of water polo — in 2008 which is aimed at increasing the talent pool.

Singapore Swimming Association’s vice-president of water polo Samuel Wong believes it is a matter of time before Singapore can compete with the likes of Asian powerhouses such as South Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan and seven-time Asian Games champions China.

He said: “I would confidently say that yes, we will be able to consistently produce players who can compete at the Asian level in about 10 years’ time. This is not an impossible dream and we’re working hard to achieve it.”