The 1971 SEAP Games must be one of P C Suppiah’s most memorable life events. His Singapore citizenship papers arrived at the Games village just a day before he was to run the race of his life. The papers were given to him personally by none other than the then President of the Singapore National Olympic Council, E W Barker. This paved the way for him to run for his adopted country. He did Singapore proud winning the gold medal for the 10,000m race and he won it in dramatic style. The then 22-year-old middle distance runner sped past his strong Burmese opponent in the last lap to clinch the gold for Singapore, breaking the Games record with a time of 55.4 seconds.

This victory opened the gates for him to compete at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Despite the acts of terrorism at the Games, he managed to go below 32 seconds for the 10,000m race and became the first Singaporean to set a yetto-bebroken record of 31min 19 seconds.