Tan Howe Liang

Tan Howe Liang, (; 5 May 1933 – 3 December 2024) was a Singaporean weightlifter who was the first Singaporean to win an Olympic Games medal. He did so in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome where he won the silver medal in the lightweight category. Tan also broke the oldest-standing world record in the lightweight category in the clean and jerk in 1958. He was the only Singaporean Olympic medalist until the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Early life Tan was born on 5 May 1933, in Swatow, China, where he was the third of eight siblings. When he was four years old, he emigrated with his family to settle in Singapore, where he grew up in Chinatown.

In 1958, Tan established a world record with a lift of 347 pounds in the jerk for the lightweight division at the 6th British Empire and Commonwealth Games (now known as the Commonwealth Games), in Cardiff. He also won a gold at the 3rd Asian Games in Tokyo that year. In 1959, Tan won a gold medal at the inaugural Southeast Asian Peninsular Games (now known as the Southeast Asian Games) in Bangkok.

On 8 September 1960, Tan made another attempt at the Olympics in Rome. In the lightweight category (60–67.5 kg) competition held at the Palazzetto dello Sport, the gold medal was won by Russia's Viktor Bushuev by breaking the world record. Tan had to compete with Iraq's Abdul Wahid Aziz for the silver medal.

Honours

Tan's Olympic medal made him the only Singaporean to have won a medal at all the major international games – the SEAP Games (predecessor of the SEA Games), the Asian Games, the Commonwealth Games, and the Olympic Games for 48 years. He also became the first weightlifter in the world to be awarded the International Weightlifting Federation (national honour) Gold Award in 1984. In Singapore, Tan was the only athlete to be bestowed the Pingat Jasa Gemilang (Meritorious Service Medal) at the National Day awards in 1962.

On 26 June 1996, a commemorative medallion set by the Singapore Mint was launched to celebrate the 1996 Olympic Games at Atlanta. It features Tan on one side of the medallion, showing him getting ready to lift weights. When the image is tilted to a certain angle, the picture would show him having lifted the weights. Izzy, the official mascot of the Atlanta Olympics, is featured as a three-dimensional image on the other side of the medallion.

In 1999, Tan was nominated for the "Spirit of the Century" award. In the same year, he was also nominated for "Singapore's Greatest Athlete" award, but conceded the award to former badminton champion, Wong Peng Soon, who was a four-time winner in the All England Open Badminton Championships in the 1950s. Tan was featured in Time's "Millennium" series on Singapore sporting greats in 1999.

In 2000, McDonald's sponsored Tan's trip to the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, where he joined the Singapore contingent and attended the weightlifting competition. McDonald's also donated S$10,000 with the aim to help revive the sport of weightlifting in Singapore. McDonald's also featured a two-minute special television commercial, titled "We Can Do It", featuring Tan's silver medal-winning feat at the 1960 Rome Olympics. The commercial re-enacts the different stages of Tan's life, from childhood to his triumph at the Olympics.

Tan was given the honour of being the flagbearer at the closing ceremony of the National Stadium on 30 June 2007. The leotard and belt which Tan wore during his 10-hour competition in Rome were put on display in a glass case in the Singapore Sports Council's Sports Museum at the National Stadium.

At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Singapore's table tennis players Feng Tianwei, Li Jiawei, and Wang Yuegu won the silver medal in the women's team category, ending Tan's 48-year status of being the sole Singaporean Olympic medalist. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Feng's bronze medal in the women's singles table tennis event meant that Tan was no longer the only Singaporean with an individual Olympic medal.

Achievements