Divers settle for silver, protest biased judging

VIENTIANE – Divers Ryan Fabriga and Jaime Asok took their silver medals, pocketed them immediately and stepped down the winners’ podium before the flag-raising ceremony for the gold medal winner could begin in defiance of the judges alleged bias in awarding the gold to the Indonesian tandem in synchronized 10m platform diving in the Southeast Asian Games yesterday.

Visibly infuriated by the results of the event, aquatic sports president Mark Joseph told The Philippine STAR he would file a protest with the Asian Swimming Federation in Kuwait and the International Swimming Federation (FINA) to protest the SEAG officiating which denied the two Filipinos the gold.

“The performance of our boys was fantastic, even the Indonesians and Malaysians thought we won the gold. The Indonesian winners dived from five meters while Ryan and Jimmy dived the standard 10 meters. The Indonesians made splashes in their entry, but they were awarded the gold,” said Joseph.

The Indonesian pair of Noor Husaini and Muhammad Nasrullah claimed the gold with 376.74 points. Asok and Fabriga were a close second with a 374.72 rating while third was the tandem of Sutit Tommaoros and Shuchart Pichi of Thailand (275.75).

Joseph said his letter to the world and Asian swimming federations would protest the lack of a technical delegate who was to be the neutral judge in all six events in the calendar of the diving competitions.

He said the neutral judge from China had not arrived, prompting the organizers to get one from Malaysia. The technical judge and seven judges from the participating countries form the panel of judges.

He said the results of the medal tally in six events had favored Malaysia, which won in the 10m platform (men and women) and 3m springboard synchronized (men and women) with the 10m platform synchronized platform (men) going to Indonesia and the 3m springboard women to Vietnam.    – Gerry Carpio