Let's salute our athletes

HOSTS Singapore defied the expectations at the 28th SEA Games. My counterpart Lawrence Wong, who also chaired the Games’ organising committee, told me the Singaporean athletes’ performances as well as the groundswell of support from the public was beyond what he imagined. Indeed, Singapore posted their best-ever results – winning 84 golds to finish second overall behind Thailand.

I would like to applaud Singapore for a truly well organised and efficient Games. The atmosphere was vibrant, everything worked well and a lot of attention had gone into getting the details right. This will be an extremely hard act for us to follow as hosts in 2017.