ABSTRACT
The omnipresent Sport for All policy has recently been eclipsed by a sports excellence strategy that ‘embraces the projection of successful sporting individuals as national heroes and heroines’ (Horton, 2001, p. 97). From the early 1990s, the government embarked on a vigorous campaign to capitalise on the extensive global value of elite sport to the nation. According to McNeill et al., ‘while sport has been instrumental in the process of nation building, it has only recently reached a level of cultural significance as a potential means for highlighting the nation’s international status’ (2003, p. 39). Within the span of 40 years, elite sport policy in Singapore has advanced from a peripheral pastime to one which today is high on the government’s political agenda (Robert, 1998).
