As the Paris Olympics 2024 began this weekend, following an unprecedented opening ceremony on Friday evening, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong shared an Instagram post yesterday, with a message of encouragement: “Go Team Singapore!”
The Instagram post had two pictures, and the first one showed the Singapore flag-bearers — sprinter Shanti Pereira and sailor Ryan Lo — at the Paris Olympics 2024 opening ceremony on the Seine.
Para-swimmer Toh Wei Soong will have the honour of carrying the Singapore flag at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, which will follow the ongoing summer Olympic Games.
PIO athlete Shanti Pereira has had a string of recent successes at the Asian level — 200m gold and 100m silver at the Hangzhou Asian Games in October 2023; and the rare “sprint double” of 200m and 100m gold at the SEA Games in Cambodia in May 2023.
“Shanti finished 2023 as Asia’s #1 Ranked Woman in the 200m,” said Sport Singapore, giving details of the flag-bearers’ achievements. This also makes her one of the biggest medal hopefuls for Singapore at the Paris Olympics 2024.
For Ryan Lo, who made his Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, this is the second Olympic Games. “He picked up sailing in 2004 and has been a consistent performer at the highest level, where he clinched a bronze medal at the 2010 Asian Games and the 2018 Asian Games, and a gold medal at [the] 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou. He will be racing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as Asia’s top-ranked Single-Handed Dinghy (ILCA7) sailor,” said Sport Singapore.
Toh Wei Soong began swimming from the age of six, as a form of therapy, “since he was diagnosed with the rare condition of Transverse Myelitis when he was two”, according to Sport Singapore. “He soon fell in love with the experience of being in water, where he faced little restriction and could do things that he could not on land.”
Wei Soong has been swimming competitively since 2013. He qualified for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, and won a bronze medal in the 50m freestyle.
Team Singapore at Paris Olympics 2024 comprises a total of 23 athletes across 11 sports.
The PIO presence in Team Singapore at the Paris Olympics 2024 also includes national-level fencer and two-time Olympian Amita Berthier. Her medal achievements include a bronze medal at the 2018 Asian Games; gold at the 2019 SEA Games; and bronze at the 2023 Asian Fencing Championships.
In a CNA interview before the start of the Paris Olympics 2024, her mother Uma Berthier, herself a former track & field athlete, recalled that the very young Amita loved sports — before fencing, she had tried out gymnastics and football.
“She was a midfielder so she would run from one end of the (field) to the other, there was no stopping her,” said Uma about Amita. “You could give her a table tennis bat, badminton racquet, whatever. Her greatest joy then and still now would be sports.”
Amita began fencing at the age of six. She was later selected for the Singapore national youth squad, and then she herself decided that she wanted to train for the sport outside Singapore in order to challenge herself more and get better.
The family’s mental resilience was proved when Amita and her sister Aarya — elder by two years — participated in the Asian Junior and Cadet Fencing Championships in Bahrain in 2016, just weeks after the death of their father Eric. Amita won an individual gold in that tournament; she and Aarya also combined with Tatiana and Maxine Wong to lift the women’s cadet team title.
