A month ago, Joseph Schooling won Singapore's first gold medal at the Olympics and broke an Olympic record.

In just two hours, all my classmates were discussing it fervently. In three hours, 380,000 tweets were posted about him ("380,000 tweets in 3 hours as Joseph Schooling creates Singapore sporting history"; ST Online, Aug 13).

The next day, numerous companies posted congratulatory advertisements.

Last Saturday, Yip Pin Xiu won a gold medal at the Paralympics and broke a world record ("Yip nets Rio gold with a world record"; Sunday).

However, there seems to be a lot less hype about her win.

Why is there such a different reaction from the Singapore public? Is there really a difference between an Olympic and a Paralympic champion?

Both Olympian Schooling and Paralympian Yip must have put in a lot of effort to win the coveted gold medal. Everyone who does his best deserves praise, glory and honour.

All our athletes trained hard to bring glory to Singapore. Let us celebrate every athlete's win equally.

Darrius Tan Wei Liang, 12, Primary 6 pupil