‘My dad’s running tomorrow’: S’pore SEA Games athletes find their names printed wrongly on race bibs

Soh Rui Yong receives French name on SEA Games race bib, Vanessa Lee gets half of her Chinese name

Singapore distance runner Soh Rui Yong and several fellow national athletes were left amused after discovering their names had been incorrectly printed on their Southeast Asian (SEA) Games race bibs, with some receiving only fragments of their names or entirely unexpected ones.

Despite the mix-up, the athletes took the situation in good humour, noting that their race numbers — the most crucial detail — were printed correctly.

SEA Games athletes receive race bibs with wrong names

On 10 Dec, Soh and other Singapore athletes, who were in Thailand for the SEA Games, were collecting their race bibs when the discrepancies came to light.

At the collection point, Soh immediately noticed something amiss.

His bib name read “Guillaume”, which is his French name.

Speaking to MS News, the 34-year-old runner said he burst out laughing upon seeing it and began filming his teammates’ reactions to their own bibs.

Several other Singapore athletes encountered similar issues.

For instance, national 800m record holder Thiruben Thana Rajan found that his bib read only “Rajan”.

“That’s my dad’s name — my dad’s running tomorrow,” he joked.

Meanwhile, 3,000m steeplechase record holder Vanessa Lee received a bib with the name “Zhuang” — the second half of her Chinese name.

“This is what my mom calls me,” she said with a smile.

Her teammate Nicole Low was also given her Chinese name, “Sui Xuan”, a detail that amused Soh, who admitted he did not even know she had a Chinese name.

“Some people’s ones are really off,” he observed. “It’s just one of those things.”

However, not every athlete encountered the issue.

Sprinter Shanti Pereira and runner Shaun Goh received bibs with the names they commonly use.

Shanti explained that this might be because “Shanti” is her middle name, which the organisers had selected.

Race bibs had accurate numbers

In response to queries by MS News, Soh confirmed that athletes were not asked to submit their preferred names for the bibs.

He added that non-Singapore athletes were also affected by this mishap.

For instance, one athlete he represents as an agent reportedly received a bib printed with “Shao Zu”, despite usually competing under the name Kristian Tung.

When asked if the discrepancies posed any administrative or competition-related problems, Soh said they did not.

He shared that the numbers printed on their bibs were correct, and that was the most important thing.

Soh also noted that this was likely the first time athletes’ names were printed on SEA Games bibs, as previous editions typically displayed only numbers.

“I think it’s a great initiative to print names instead of numbers, but it would be great if athletes could submit their preferred names,” he suggested.

“This is done for larger-scale events like the Valencia Half Marathon and Valencia Marathon that I’ve been part of.”

Also read: Soh Rui Yong cleared for SEA Games after successful appeal, Young Lions also reinstated

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Featured image adapted from @runsohfast on TikTok.