SEA Games 2025: A Review of the Games, with a Focus on Football and Badminton
The 2025 SEA Games in Bangkok saw Team Singapore celebrate an impressive 202 medals and a record-breaking 52 golds, 61 silvers, and 89 bronzes. Despite this success, local sports administrators acknowledged the rising competition from other regional teams and the need to improve ahead of the 2029 edition, which will be held on home soil.
The Team Singapore review, held at the Grand Fourwings Convention Hotel on December 20, praised the nation's 926 athletes, nearly 60% of whom were SEA Games debutants, for their resilience, discipline, and pride. Their performances helped Singapore secure fifth place on the medal table, behind Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia.
The Republic's best away SEA Games performance was in 2017, when they won 58 golds, 58 silvers, and 72 bronzes.
Singapore's aquatics contingent shone brightly, contributing 22 golds, with 19 from swimming, one each from artistic swimming, diving, and water polo. Fencing also had a record-breaking eight golds, while sailing and table tennis delivered four golds each.
There were notable firsts and long-awaited podium finishes, including Singapore's first 3x3 basketball medal, with the men's team stunning the Philippines to win silver. Calvin Quek ended a 60-year gold-medal drought in the men's 400m hurdles, and Avvir Tham won the men's 1m springboard gold.
Youngsters like 14-year-old Julia Yeo, 18-year-old fencer Elle Koh, and 19-year-olds Izaac Quek and Marissa Hafezan also made their mark, with Yeo contributing to a meet record in the women's 4x100m medley relay, Koh winning gold at three consecutive Games, and Quek and Hafezan retaining their table tennis and karate golds, respectively.
At the other end of the age spectrum, 57-year-old Peter Gilchrist continued to impress with his eighth English billiards individual gold, while 35-year-old shooter Jasmine Ser and 32-year-old swimmer Amanda Lim enjoyed golden swansongs.
High Performance Sport Institute chief Su Chun-wei praised the team's performance, calling it "a dazzling display of youthful promise and veteran excellence." However, he also noted that the largest contingent does not necessarily translate to a record gold-medal haul.
He stated, "The region is getting very much better, very quickly. It is no longer easy to win gold medals and break meet records at the SEA Games. We will continue to invest in our youth, believe in our systemic structures and processes to nurture budding athletes early and keep them competitive for longer."
Despite the overall success, there were areas for improvement, particularly in badminton and football. Singapore Badminton Association president Leow acknowledged that the sport failed to deliver, bringing home only two team bronzes. Top seeds Loh Kean Yew and Jason Teh did not live up to expectations, and Yeo Jia Min was absent from the women's singles and team events due to injury.
Singapore National Olympic Council secretary-general Mark Chay also criticized the national men's under-22 football team for their lack of quality and sportsmanship, crashing out of the group stage for a sixth consecutive edition and failing to acknowledge their supporters.
As the SEA Games move to Malaysia in 2027 and then to Singapore in 2029, Chay emphasized that sports like athletics, with 47 events, need to "come to the party." He also urged improvements from other sports that did not deliver medals, such as extreme sports, pentathlon, sepak takraw, tennis, volleyball, and weightlifting.
