This is a historic sporting moment that Singapore experiences on the fourth weekend of Advent. 24-year-old Luo Qin Yu won the Badminton World Championship, the first city-state world title in the discipline. This success came just a few hours after the national soccer team had also won the semi-finals of the AFF Suzuki Cup in front of their own fans for the first time.

It took only 43 minutes, but tense minutes in Huelva, Spain, for Lu Qin Yu to become world champion. India Srikanth Kidambi lost in straight sets, the second set was heavy. Luo’s victory immediately became the news of the day on TV and online media.

It even stopped the city’s footballers from making the headlines. The 9,500 fans in the national stadium cheered on Saturday and celebrated the qualification of the Lions. The fact that the game against the favorites was lost 2-0 didn’t dampen the excitement. He no longer plays a role in the results, but brings Indonesia as a competitor to a strong team, winner of another group at this Southeast Asian Championship.

Luo with the title after a meteoric rise and placing the Lions in the qualifying semi-finals is a great end to a great sporting year for Singapore with its success. At the Paralympic Games in Tokyo, swimmer Yip Bin Xiu won gold medals twice and bowler Shayna Ng won the singles world title in November.

In the history of sports in Singapore, such successes can be counted on one hand. The latter goes back to the swimmer Joseph Schooling, Olympic champion in Rio 2016. The first of a total of five Olympic medals was brought home by a weightlifter from Rome in 1960. At that time Singapore began as an independent British colony, but was already under the current national flag.

When it comes to top-class sport, Singaporeans are likely to be few. In team sports, on the other hand, city-states are really mobile. Two thirds of the population of 5.8 million people exercise at least once a week, half three times. According to a survey by the Ministry of Health, the trend is increasing, which also signals the success of Vision 2030, which seeks to understand sport as a way of social mobility and as a national language.

In the evenings and on weekends, the jogging and biking trails in East Coast Park are popular. Marathon fans meet more relaxed families. On the separate piste, cyclists with carbon bikes outperformed rental cyclists, including those who strolled in front of the basket with their small dogs. The traffic rules are strictly observed, left-hand traffic with a right-hand detour and crossing pedestrians are braked.

Nice and quiet compared to the busy and politically high bicycle traffic in Zurich. Incidentally, this also applies to the second point. In the national stadium with 55,000 seats, of which only a small part can be used due to Covid restrictions, there is no hectic on Sunday during the game between Indonesia and Malaysia.

Students or seniors who are upgrading their pensions are literally providing warm services in access control and security and within stadiums. Neither uniformed law enforcement officers are standing to the side, nor police officers in riot gear, which is unfortunately a requirement in Swiss stadiums. Singapore knows what nature has in store for sports enthusiasts. At the equator, excitement doesn’t go hand-in-hand with improvement.