Our Fave Moments From The 2017 SEA Games

Singapore's Yu Shuran won a gold medal in figure skating at the 2017 Southeast Asian Games, a first for Singapore. This year is also figure skating's debut at the regional meet. The 17-year-old, who's originally from Beijing, was apparently disappointed and "not entirely thrilled" with her performance. Chill Shuran, you're a SEA Games gold medallist now! Meanwhile her fellow Singaporen Chloe Ing took home silver. Ice job, girls!

Photo credit: Justin Ong / CNA

For your info, we lost to Malaysia for the past four SEA Games where men’s team squash was included. Yes, we got silver four events in a row thanks to our quick-footed neighbors. Now you see why this Gold is momentous?

Picture credit: Jason Quah/TODAY

Imagine going against the same opponents you lost to two years ago. On home ground, no less. The trio of Ryan Lo, Bernie Chin and Mark Wong beat hosts Malaysia to win the men’s team racing dinghy laser standard at the National Sailing Centre in Langkawi. For Lo, it was sweet revenge as he was part of the team which lost to the same opponents at the 2015 Games in Singapore. Goes to show that the wind favours those who persevere.

Photo credit: Singapore Sailing Federation Facebook page

Defending champion Soh Rui Yong became the first Singapore man to win back-to-back SEA Games marathon titles. But just weeks prior, he was almost kicked out of the Singapore SEA Games team. For what, you ask? For promoting his personal sponsors on social media, which is against the Singapore National Olympic Council’s (SNOC) rules, that's what. Soh's argument was that athletes live on a “shoestring budget to make ends meet” and he feels the need to give his sponsors more bang for their buck during the SEA Games, which, he thinks, is the only period that people care about local sports.

Photo credit: Noor Farhan/CNA

High jumper Michelle Sng clinched Singapore's first track and field gold at the 2017 SEA Games. But it only came after a protest by Singapore officials. Michelle was tied with Vietnam's Duong Thi Viet Anh with jumps of 1.83m and both athletes then failed to clear the height of 1.86m. After being told they would be awarded joint golds, the two were then told to do jump-offs. This time with the gold was awarded to Vietnam. Considering they had already cooled down, Team Singapore protested. Thankfully, Michelle got her joint gold in the end.

Photo: Goh Chiew Tong / CNA

This time, it's not just Schooling pulling ahead of everyone else. The quartet of (from left) Danny Yeo, Quah Zheng Wen, Pang Sheng Jun and Joseph Schooling did us proud by defeating Malaysia and Vietnam for gold at the SEA Games men's 4x200m freestyle event on Thursday, Aug 24. How far ahead were they? More than 6 seconds ahead of the closest competition. It was Singapore's second men's relay gold at the competition after a successful 4x100m freestyle race when Joseph Schooling, Danny Yeo, Darren Lim and Quah Zheng Wen finished first, breaking the national and 2015 SEA Games record at the same time. And that's how legends are created.

Photo credit: Instagram/swaggywhale

We just had to include this. Malaysia was, um, flagged for the wrong reason when they attributed the wrong flags to the wrong countries. The flags of Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia and Laos were reflected wrongly in the country's main broadcast of the medal tally. They even got the nationality of their own swimmer, Keith Lim Kit Sern, wrong. Oops. Let's hope this geographical blunder won't be what people remember of this year's Games. Till we meet again in the Philippines in 2019!