The 33rd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games have concluded with another strong showing from Team Singapore.
Although the Games brought glory to many athletes, the event was not without its fair share of blunders — whether they were by the athletes, the organisers, or even the crowd.
Source: Singapore National Olympic Council on Facebook
The Games, which took place in Bangkok from 9 to 20 Dec, drew criticism before they even began when posts on official social media mixed up national flags, using those of Laos and Vietnam for Indonesia and Thailand, respectively.
Source: Thai Enquirer on Facebook
As things were ramping up closer to the official opening, more errors occurred, with flags continuing to get mixed up and national anthems not playing during the opening football match between Vietnam and Laos on 3 Dec.
Later that same day, during another football match, the stadium lights malfunctioned, prompting organisers to rush to another stadium to borrow spares.
While the rest of the Games mostly proceeded without much of the earlier drama, the blunders that did occur quickly became big talking points.
Here are six moments that the public will remember for all the wrong reasons.
In addition to making sure that the sporting action is fully displayed to audiences at home, the SEA Games TV crew kept a lookout for interesting footage of spectators to showcase the energy in the venues.
That means the cameras were always on the lookout for handsome men, beautiful women, and people who had dressed up to cheer on their national teams.
Unfortunately, efforts to showcase beautiful women in the crowd ended up backfiring when it turned out that they were holding signs advertising gambling sites.
Source: Thai Enquirer on Facebook
On 3 Dec, the first unofficial day of competition, the women were seen holding scarves supporting Thailand with a gambling site’s branding on it.
Screenshots inevitably circulated online, with public criticism swiftly levelled at the organisers for letting this slip.
In a similar vein, another “live” broadcast went viral on 16 Dec when a Filipina fan experienced a wardrobe malfunction just as the camera focused on her.
A clip of the moment, which occurred during a men’s volleyball match between the Philippines and Indonesia, was shared online and racked up over seven million views in just two days.
Source: @MikLib on X
It occurred as the men on court were preparing for their next service, and the feed switched to a view of the audience.
When the woman noticed she was on camera, she perked up in excitement, but her dress slipped.
She would later address the incident on social media, saying that she had been wearing nipple pads but that they had come loose when she was cheering.
In possibly the Games’ biggest cheating scandal, the Thai women’s esports team withdrew after one of its players allegedly violated competition rules on 15 Dec.
Naphat Warasin, better known by her username “Tokyogurl”, was accused of using unauthorised third-party software on her phone to allow someone else to play for her during the final against Vietnam.
According to The Nation, a referee noticed that Warasin’s fingers did not match her character’s movements on screen. It was then allegedly discovered that she had been using “TeamViewer” on her phone, which would allow a person from outside the competition to view her screen and give her advice.
Source: Sanook
Her club, Talon Esports, swiftly terminated her contract. Garena, the company behind the game, also handed her a lifetime ban from all its competitions.
As a result of the scandal, the Thai national women’s team withdrew from the games entirely.
Before this, Warasin was seen as Thailand’s best player. She has denied allegations of cheating.
Not even the referees were safe from harm when things got physical during the women’s pencak silat Class B quarter-finals.
When the match between Thailand and Malaysia ended in a tie, the win was awarded to Thailand as the Malaysians had committed more fouls during the match.
But the decision was immediately disputed by the Malaysian team, who felt that their athlete should have been awarded more points for her proactiveness.
Unsatisfied with the decision, a coach from the Malaysian team rushed at a referee who was leaving the venue.
Some men stepped in to separate them, but as she was escorted away, she grabbed onto the jacket of one of the men and threw him to the floor.
Source: @ThaiEnquirer on X
The altercation prompted police officers nearby to step in and de-escalate the situation.
Singapore did not escape controversy at the SEA Games, with the Republic’s athletes victims of technical malfunctions.
On 12 Dec, two Singaporean hurdlers had their national records voided due to issues with the timing system.
Despite winning silver in the men’s 110m final after setting what would have been a national record at 13.75 seconds, Ang Chen Xiang’s national record now remains at 13.77s.
Meanwhile, Kerstin Ong — who spoke to MS News about the difficulties and sacrifices she made to run on the world stage — also suffered a similar misfortune.
Source: Kerstin Ong on Facebook
In her Games debut, Ong had two of her timings annulled — her 13.47s in the women’s 100m heats and 13.85s in the final of the same event.
Both timings would have broken her current national record of 13.86s.
She eventually finished seventh out of eight athletes in the final.
In a more light-hearted error, it seems the organisers had some trouble with Singaporean names, as many of our athletes had their names printed wrongly on their bibs.
On 10 Dec, long-distance runner Soh Rui Yong shared the blunder on TikTok as the team collected their bibs. Instead of his usual name, Soh’s bib read “Guillaume”, which is his French name.
Source: @runsohfast on TikTok
He was not alone. National 800m record holder Thiruben Thana Rajan’s bib read only “Rajan”, prompting him to joke that his dad was going to run.
Meanwhile, 3,000m steeplechase record holder Vanessa Lee only had “Zhuang” — the second half of her Chinese name — on hers.
No SEA Games is without its share of controversy.
But despite the drama on camera and off, Singapore had a decent showing this year, ranking fifth overall in gold medals — up from 2023’s sixth.
Team Singapore sent a total of 926 athletes to compete in 48 sports and won 202 medals — 52 of which were gold.
Source: Singapore National Olympic Council on Facebook
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Featured image adapted from Sanook, @ThaiEnquirer on X, @runsohfast on TikTok.