THE discussion at a recent dinner turned to The Straits Times Athlete of the Year award and it was a pleasant surprise to see how familiar some in the group of more than a dozen were with the sports personalities that had been nominated.

I would have understood had the tussle for the title been between Jamaican sprint marvel Usain Bolt, the amphibious Michael Phelps, or the multi-time Olympic swimming medallist Dara Torres.

These were household names on planet earth during the summer Olympics and pictures of their faces (and torsos) were splashed across the pages of all magazines. The Straits Times award was confined to local athletes.

Surprise No. 2 was the vigour with which some of them put across their arguments for their choice of champion.

Listening to those backing Tao Li, a martian visiting earth (that's the only way you would not have heard of Phelps) would have concluded that the Singaporean was the fastest in the world and the US record Olympic medal winner, a very close second.

Other than when English Premier League football is discussed, sport doesn't evoke emotions in Singapore like it does in Australia, New Zealand or some of the countries in this region. But that night, the guys would have outdone Taiwanese politicians in parliament.

Perhaps it was the wine. May be that is the secret of the Aussies and the Kiwis (something for the Singapore Sports Council to look into).

So for someone like me who would like to see a stronger sporting culture in Singapore, this was a treat.

The arguments for who should win the award generally took one of three points of view. A number of them believed that medals count for everything and that the award should go to a medal winner.

Athletes who have not won anything have no business being on the list and should quietly request that their names be withdrawn, one ebullient supporter of the women's table tennis team said.

Using that criterion, bowler Jasmine Yeong-Nathan, paralympian Yip Pin Xiu and golfer Lam Chih Bing are others who would have made the cut.

The football team would be out, so would Tao Li. 

A few others held the view that athletes should be rewarded for their achievements, regardless of medal tally. Those who gave their utmost, and had outdone themselves put themselves in good stead for an award.

All six nominees passed this test. Those who took the third line of argument were adamant that nothing could beat the achievements of the paralympians. For this group, only Pin Xiu deserved to be nominated.

As the night wore on and the guys championed their pick while running down the choice of the others, flaws began to show up in their arguments.

It slowly began to emerge that the athlete they were rooting for was not the top, but their favourite athlete.

One of them, a great football fan, could rattle off the match scores of games the Singapore Lions had played since Dollah Kassim’s time. For him, the Lions were king.

But when asked about how these players compared against what Pin Xiu or even Tao Li had achieved, he dismissed us like football referees do protesting players. This guy knew zilch about what the other athletes had achieved.

The ST Athlete of the Year award is not about picking our favourite athlete, who we like, or the athlete from the sport we enjoy. It is an award to honour the one athlete who had impressed and inspired us with his performance.

It's going to be tough because it calls for us looking beyond the sport we love.

Email stsports@sph.com.sg and leave your comments here on who should get the award.