Buhain appeals tankers’ gold medal forfeit

HANOI, Vietnam (Via Globe Telecom)–Philippine Sports Commission chairman Eric Buhain yesterday appealed to the president of the 22nd Southeast Asian Games Federation to reconsider an earlier decision disqualifying the Philippines’ 4x200m freestyle relay team for violation that cost them the gold during the swimming competitions Saturday.

In his letter to Nguyen Dan Thai, SEAGF president, Buhain said the "violation"–jumping too soon on the exchange between players– was a computer error, which the German computer expert confirmed.

The RP relay team was disqualified when a technical official informed RP team officials that their second swimmer, Juan Miguel Mendoza, made the jump even before the first runner could touch the pad.

In a relay, the next swimmer must wait for the first man to touch the pad before he could jump on the water. If the period of touching and jumping occurs simultaneously or within a tolerated fraction of a thousandth of a second, the computer registers a positive mark. It means the exchange of swimmers is legal.

The exchange occurs thrice during the race—after the 200 meters, 400 meters and 600 meters. The computer showed the violation took place after 300 meters. There obviously was no exchange of players at that point.

At first, the RP team took the technical official’s word for it when he said they were disqualified for jumping too soon. The gold went to Malaysia, the second placer.

However, a day later, when they received a computer printout of the detailed results, which included the time of each swimmer on the relay and the intervening time of the exchange between players, they discovered the "violation" was recorded on the 300th meter.

Buhain, a veteran international swimmer who was the most outstanding athlete of the 1989 and 1991 SEA Games, said the German computer expert, Urs Siegenthater, was himself surprised why a negative result was registered at that point where the players did not make an exchange.

A swimming official explained somebody could have jumped the plug during the race, resulting in the malfunction of the ultra-sensitive device, an Omega sports timing device operated by a computer expert.

The computer showed a negative 0.89 after 300 meters—which means somebody jumped on the water ahead of the previous runner’s touch on the pad.

Buhain made the appeal on behalf of the RP swimmers since they have exceeded the grace period for filing a protest–within 30 minutes after the conclusion of the event.

Buhain contended that the true results were released only a day after. Furthermore, the mistake is not even a technical or judgment error.

"The mistake is not the fault of anybody but a computer," said Buhain.

"Upon consulting the electronic timing device engineer in charge of the online monitoring and control equipment, he was surprised to see the negative .89 second appear on the 300-meter mark of the printout where no exchange actually took place and promised to check the computer for technical flaws," Buhain told Nguyen.