We are better than Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uganda!

So Delhi was our best showing thus far in a world class sporting event.

Supposedly our athletes performed better this time around; even beating the records when we won 10 gold medals in 1998. Mind you then we have had home ground advantage.

Indeed we are better than those countries. The theSun and Tunku Abidin Muhriz, of all people, picked up the story and compared our achievement to countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uganda, all of which have bigger population than us. And according to the president of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, this is a testament to our superior talent, training and facilities!

Wow. Don't you feel really good?

And the theSun front-paged our Delhi achievement with "Golden finish" headline and spiritedly told us about how our athletes made it good this time around.

Oh boy.

Since when did Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uganda set the standard in sporting excellence? I thought that would be Australia, which has a population similar to ours, and yet they ended up with 6 times more gold medals (74 vs 12 of ours) than us, and a total of 177 medals (our total is 35). And all the gold medals that matter, actually.

How about comparing ourselves to our Southern neighbour Singapore? A fraction of our land space - in fact they would all be flooded and drowned in Bakun, has only one-tenth of our population and yet they ended with just one gold medal short. No lah, not just one medal lah - one medal short. We have 12 golds, and they have eleven. Just one medal short; not just one tenth of our medal if Tunku Abidin's argument was to be used.

I guess that goes to show their superior talent, facilities and training. And on the other hand, it tells us how pathetic we have been in these areas. No wonder LKY has told us many times that we are a failed state.

We will do anything and everything to justify our so called achievement and make us feel good about ourselves. NOthing wrong with that. We need it. Normally newspapers like the theSun would put things in perspective, but this time around, they all wanted to have some share of the spoils. The readers are now longer uneducated. We are at least a decade old in the new millennium.