The Thais have been reported as dubbing the Kuala Lumpur 2017 SEA Games as the Kuala Lumpur “SEA Kong” instead, which translates to “SEA Cheating” in Thai.
So, winning the most watched event in the entire tournament, and beating the high-riding Malaysians with an own goal at that, may have seen some Thais claiming karma was at work.
According to the English daily, the Thai contingent do not believe that the hosts won most of the events at the Games “in a straightforward manner”.
“Many Thai officials, athletes, journalists and fans, see KL 2017 as being the worst in SEA Games history in terms of both officiating and organising.
“Thana Chaiprasit has been Thailand’s chief of delegation at several international events including the Olympics, Asian Games and SEA Games, and he says the officiating at KL2017 is the worst he has ever seen,” Bangkok Post said.
The paper quoted Chaiprasit as saying that officials of other countries have similar views on the matter but that nobody has bothered to formally lodge a complaint with the organisers because it would be useless as “the hosts only want to become overall champions”.
Among the allegations made by the Thai contingent to the media back home, as well as cases of bad organisation that had allegedly helped the Malaysians are:
- In Pencak Silat, a Malaysian fighter was declared the winner after he accidentally got injured in the final against his Thai opponent.
- A Malaysian athlete won the gold medal in a women’s walk event after she apparently ran in the final stretch to the finish line.
- In gymnastics, two Malaysians were awarded gold medals in the same event.
- The Muay Thai finals were originally scheduled to begin at 3pm but the hosts moved the starting time to 1am.
The report also highlighted how a photo of the SEA Games mascot with the number 100, after Malaysia won its 100th gold medal, faced harsh criticism, ridicule and sarcasm on Thai websites.
“You should win one million gold medals,” wrote a Thai fan, and “100 SEA Games gold medals but no Olympic gold,” said another, according to Bangkok Post.
This is the second time in SEA Games history that Malaysia has taken the overall crown. The first time was in 2001, when Kuala Lumpur also hosted the Games.