Singapore Wins First Gold and it’s a Doozy: Joseph Schooling Beats Michael Phelps!

Well, to be honest there is some mixed feelings here tonight.  Phelps wins gold again?  Or the Singaporian swimmer?  No gold medal at all for an entire nation.  (Phelps has 22 already!)  But no pro athletes in swimming.  So it’s USA!

But I promised:  Pursuant to the Sanders Olympic Policy, any nation who wins their first medal of any kind or first gold medal for the nation in its history, gets a tout, victory lap and the national anthem is played.  And since Joseph Schooling of Singapore won his semifinal heat (had fastest time, too) yesterday I wondered:  Will Schooling win gold?

After all, Phelps is amazing.  (If Michael Phelps were a nation, he’d be about 39th on the all time gold medal list!  He also is ahead in the gold medal count of all these nations – including Singapore who has only won 3 or 4 medals all time before tonight.)  I really admire him.  I am actually hoping he might try again in 2020.

I thought Phelps would win and the Singapore swimmer would take silver or bronze.  Still a great feat but not quite enough for the Sanders tout, victory lap, and national anthem here at Virginia Right.  But I was wrong!

Singapore wins first gold medal in any Olympics.  It won the Sanders tout, et al.

And Singapore is a success story – it was part of Malaysia and decided it might not want to continue to remain in that nation.  So both nations agreed to allow peaceful secession.  And it is an independent nation.  Singapore is touted as a free market miracle and it is impressive and controversial:

ONE of the world’s great economic success stories, Singapore owes much of its prosperity to a record of honest and pragmatic government, the legacy of Lee Kuan Yew, who has died aged 91. *** Singapore’s prosperity and orderliness won admirers East and West, and came to be viewed as a kind of model.

Mr Lee’s political views, however, were controversial. Decrying the decadence and welfarism which he thought had sapped the strength of countries such as Britain, he supported tough laws and punishments, making Singapore orderly, clean and disciplined. He was quick to use British-era legislation, including a draconian Internal Security Act, to quell anything that smacked of subversion. Defamation suits were used to tame the press and, on occasion, bankrupt his critics.

Here is an article on Schooling’s win (he had an Olympic record and Phelps tied with a South African and Hungarian for second and all three won the silver medal!) from the Singapore Times.

RIO DE JANEIRO – The boy who left home at age 14 to train in the United States, in pursuit of a dream many labelled impossible, is now the man who has delivered his nation’s first Olympic gold.

Joseph Schooling’s single-minded, seven-year chase of his Olympic dream bore fruit when he touched home first on Friday night (Brazil time), showing the world – and his countrymen back home – what a small country like Singapore is capable of at sport’s pinnacle.

And here’s 50 of Schooling’s countrymen watching and cheering for their first Olympic win:

SINGAPORE – About 50 Singaporeans gathered at the OCBC Aquatic Centre broke out in riotous cheers as national swimmer Joseph Schooling won Singapore’s first gold medal at the Olympic Games on Saturday (Aug 13) morning.

The crowd cheered throughout the 100m butterfly final, which lasted less than a minute, and many leapt for joy when Schooling touched the wall in a record time of 50.39sec – an Olympic record.

There was a rare three-way tie for silver. Defending champion Michael Phelps of the United States, five-time Olympic medallist Laszlo Cseh of Hungary and defending world champion Chad le Clos of South Africa all clocked 51.41sec to share second place.

And the medal ceremony was on tonight on US TV (probably because of Phelps) and I watched Schooling carefully.  He was clearly moved and quietly mouthed the words of the anthem as it played.  Enjoy your win, Joseph; you’ll now be a national hero.  Congratulations to Singapore, too.  And as promised (I need to clandestinely do the victory lap to the national anthem with flag due to the victory over Phelps) here is the Singapore national anthem.

Who will be next?  Perhaps Bosnia in the 800 meters (the Bosnian woman in judo did not medal) and that event could produce Botswana’s first gold, too!  Or a surprise could happen…

Article written by: Elwood “Sandy” Sanders