Singapore coach jailed for falsifying finswimming results
In Singapore, former finswimming coach Muhammad Faiz Suhaimi was sentenced to one week in prison for conspiring to falsify competition results to select athletes for the 2023 Southeast Asian Games. As Channel NewsAsia reports, the 33-year-old Singaporean pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to make a false electronic record for the purpose of cheating.
Falsification of results
At the time of the events, Suhaimi worked as a coach at the Singapore Underwater Federation. According to court documents, his alleged accomplices were the then vice-president for sport and head finswimming coach Ho Ho Huat, as well as assistant coach Gary Lee Kuan Hua.
At the time of the offence, the 32nd Southeast Asian Games were scheduled to take place in Cambodia in May 2023. During the selection process, some finswimming events were removed from the programme, causing certain athletes to lose their eligibility for selection. A qualifying competition result had to be submitted for the appeals procedure.
In January 2023, five male Singaporean athletes competed at the first Malaysia Finswimming Championship, although the tournament was intended only for Malaysian swimmers. These five participants were not issued an official results sheet.
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Consequences for selection
Suhaimi created a false electronic record for four championship events, indicating the participation of female athletes, although only men had travelled to Malaysia. The record was provided to the athlete development manager for finswimming in an effort to secure the athletes' selection to Singapore's SEA Games team.
The appeals committee of the Singapore National Olympic Council ultimately selected eight athletes. Six of them, including Ho's daughter, would not have made the team without the falsified results. The other two had already been selected to compete in other SEA Games events, but the false data became the basis for their inclusion in one additional event.
Sending six additional athletes to the competition cost the Singapore National Olympic Council approximately S$15,700. Ho was removed from his position at the federation in December 2023. Suhaimi and Lee later informed an anonymous whistleblower about the falsified results. Pre-trial conferences in the cases against Ho and Lee are scheduled for October.
