After limiting her dessert to just nibbles of pastries in the lead-up to the 29th SEA Games, national high jumper Michelle Sng finally got to have her cake and eat it yesterday.
The two cheese tarts she ate, one original flavour and the other green tea-flavoured, must have tasted especially sweet, as Sng had been awarded the joint high-jump gold about 19 hours after the event ended, following the successful appeal of Singapore officials.
Sng and Vietnamese jumper Duong Thi Viet Anh had both cleared 1.83m on Thursday night and were told by officials if they would like to share first place, which both athletes agreed.
The high-jump bar and markers were removed to signal the end of the competition. Sng had also removed the spikes from her shoes and the tape that held her injured right knee in place.
But 10 minutes later, officials recalled both athletes for a jump off. Duong cleared 1.82m in the jump off while Sng was unsuccessful and thought she had won silver.
Singapore officials lodged a protest, and a jury managed by the Malaysia Organising Committee for the Kuala Lumpur Games decided yesterday afternoon that both jumpers would share the gold.
Sng later revealed that the 19-hour wait for the final verdict had not been as nerve-racking as others might have expected, simply because her aim for these Games was just to compete. She admitted that she did not sleep well but it had more to do with the caffeine in her system and her tendency to rise early in the morning.
Before she knew of the protest, it was an emotional Sng who faced the media on Thursday night at Bukit Jalil National Stadium, as she spoke of her decision to retire at the very same place six years ago during a training stint.
Tearing up, she had said: "I reached my goal in starting the competition and anything else is a bonus. In 2011 I came to Malaysia to train… it was here in Bukit Jalil that I made the decision to retire.
"I hadn't been back here even after my comeback (in 2014). It's been six years, coming back here and to even start the competition means I've come full circle."
Yesterday, the 30-year-old reiterated that the colour of the medal was not her priority.
Still, there is no denying what Sng had achieved is historic for Singapore athletics. Cheong Wai Hing was the last local woman to win Games gold in high jump, triumphing in 1965 when the biennial event was still called the South-east Asian Peninsular (Seap) Games. At the 1975 Seap Games, Noor Azhar Hamid won the men's title.
Sng revealed she was under a lot more pressure when she won a bronze at the last Games in 2015 but she was at peace with herself this time round.
"This time in KL it's a lot more of a personal journey, and I guess it validates my decision to come back because I've sort of closed up that loop after having to leave the sport so heartbroken all those years ago," added Sng, who holds the national high-jump record of 1.84m.
"I think (this) was probably my calmest-ever competition, I wasn't giving myself any pressure to do a new personal best, break the national record or get onto the podium - I was just very happy to be competing."
As Majulah Singapura reverberated around the stadium yesterday, she wept on the podium as the significance of her achievement sank in.
Sng, who shared a long hug with former coach Chan See Huey after the victory ceremony, later said: "I wasn't even telling myself not to cry anymore because I knew it was going to happen."
She also stressed that she welcomed the gold medal as an added bonus, saying: "The silver medal was really a bonus and this gold is just the cherry on top."
• Additional reporting by Mark Cheong
Correction Note: An earlier version of this story said that Chan See Huey was Sng's coach instead of her former coach. This has been corrected.
