First of all, let me congratulate all the Paralympians who represented Singapore at the Tokyo Paralympics this year, especially swimmer Yip Pin Xiu, who did us proud with two gold medals.

There have been many people calling for equal reward money for Paralympian and Olympian medallists.

I am not sure if there are others who think that it should remain as the status quo but are too afraid to say so for fear of being criticised. I support the present reward schemes and here is why.

First, the standard of competition and size of both Games are very different. For instance, the Paralympics' women's 100m backstroke (S2) event had only nine swimmers whereas the 100m event at the Olympics had 43 swimmers.

Yip won by 9.57 seconds. Australia's Kaylee McKeown won the Olympic gold by a mere 0.25 second.

The whole world can call McKeown the fastest women's 100m backstroke swimmer. But Yip cannot be considered the fastest women's 100m backstroke para-swimmer because there were 10 categories of swimmers with different disabilities and many of them were faster than Yip.

This is only one example of the tremendous gulf between Paralympian and Olympian athletes.

Yip has won five gold medals in the span of four Paralympics. Joseph Schooling has won one gold across three Olympics.

His is also Singapore's only gold medal since our participation in 1948, in 18 Olympics across 73 years.

Our only individual silver was won by weightlifter Tan Howe Liang in 1960. Feng Tianwei was the only singles bronze medal winner at London 2012.

Singapore took part in the Paralympics from 1988. So that is five gold medals in nine Games, across 33 years.

The top Paralympians who have won the most medals are Trischa Zorn (41 gold, nine silver, five bronze) and Ragnhild Myklebust (22 gold, three silver, two bronze).

The most bemedalled Olympic winners are Michael Phelps (23 gold, three silver, two bronze) and Larisa Latynina (nine gold, five silver, four bronze).

Moreover, the Paralympics started in 1960 and the Olympics in 1896.

Compare the medals won by the top countries in the 2020 Paralympics and the Olympics (in brackets):

• China: 96 gold, 60 silver, 51 bronze (38 gold, 32 silver, 18 bronze)

• Britain: 41 gold, 38 silver, 45 bronze (22 gold, 21 silver, 22 bronze)

• US: 37 gold, 36 silver, 31 bronze (39 gold, 41 silver, 33 bronze)

• Russian Paralympic Committee: 36 gold, 33 silver, 49 bronze (Russian Olympic Committee: 20 gold, 28 silver, 23 bronze)

From these figures, it can be seen that medals are more easily won at the Paralympics.

In all sports, the most money is always given to the best athletes and teams. No one complains about the disparity between the different categories of athletes.

Examples are football's English Premier League, which gets the top players and money from TV coverage, and the tennis world's Grand Slams, which pay the highest prize money.

The writer of a Forum letter mentioned that Australia is ready to reward its Paralympians and Olympians equally (Let's give our Paralympian heroes their just rewards, Sept 6). Does he know that Australia pays its gold medallists A$20,000 (S$19,800)?

I would have no qualms about it if our prize money was only $20,000.

I am most sympathetic towards para-athletes, but giving the same monetary rewards to Paralympians and Olympians is a different matter.

Vincent Tan T. K.