Soh Rui Yong's refusal to retract allegations on Ashley Liew 'reflects poorly' on him: SNOC
UPDATE #2: Through his lawyer, Mark Teng of That.Legal LLC, Ashley Liew has sent a cease and desist letter requesting, among other things, that Soh Rui Yong retracts his statements and make a public apology.
UPDATE: The Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) has responded to Soh Rui Yong’s comment that it was spending public resources in investigating his allegations. It said, “The SNOC is a non-profit and non-governmental organisation. No public funds are involved in investigating the false allegations made by Mr Soh.”
The Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) has criticised national marathon record-holder Soh Rui Yong for refusing to withdraw his allegations against fellow marathoner Ashley Liew.
The council had served the 27-year-old a legal letter on 1 April to retract his allegations – that Liew did not slow down for competitors who missed a U-turn at the 2015 SEA Games marathon race as claimed – by 5pm on Monday (8 April).
When Soh refused to do so, SNOC released a statement on Tuesday saying that Soh’s continued refusal to acknowledge that he was wrong “reflects poorly on him as an individual and as an athlete who is supposed to serve as an example to the sporting youth of his country”.
In addition, the council said that it has done all that is necessary to bring the truth of what happened during the race to light, and will leave it to Liew to take up the matter further with Soh to vindicate his reputation.
Soh insists he never questioned SNOC decision to award Liew
The statement, which was posted on SNOC’s Facebook page, drew a reply from Soh, who wrote in the comments on the post that he never once questioned the council’s decision to award a special sportsmanship award to Liew.
He wrote, “All I have said is that what I saw does not corroborate with what Ashley’s account of what he did. I did not choose to involve SNOC. SNOC, you involved yourself when you sent me that legal letter.
“Glad to see that you’ve chosen to drop the legal case, and leave it to Ashley to defend his own side of the story, which is what you should have done in the first place rather than spending public resources on this matter.”
Dispute began in 2018 on social media
The dispute came to light in 2018, when Soh put up a Facebook post challenging Liew’s account of events that occurred at the 2015 Singapore SEA Games marathon race.
During the race, Liew found himself with a 50m lead after the 12 other runners missed a U-turn and took the wrong route. Instead of capitalising on his advantage, he claimed that he slowed down to give his rivals time to catch up. He eventually finished eighth while Soh won the race.
Liew was applauded for his sporting gesture, and eventually was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin World Fair Play Trophy by the International Fair Play Committee (CIFP) in 2016.
However, Soh – who also won the 2017 SEA Games marathon gold in Kuala Lumpur – alleged on social media that Liew’s story was untrue, after the CIFP put up a Facebook post in 2018 hailing Liew as a role model for fair play. He also repeated those comments on his Facebook page and on his blog.
Following his claim, Filipino runner Rafael Poliquit – who was among the 12 runners in the SEA Games race – and two witnesses who had previously coached Soh also backed up his version of events.
Four additional eye-witnesses who affirmed Liew’s action
SNOC said in its Facebook post that, during its investigations into Soh’s allegation, it worked with its lawyers to locate additional eyewitnesses and interview them to ascertain whether they had seen Liew slowing down during the race, in particular, when the leading pack of runners had taken the wrong turn.
According to the council, four eyewitnesses were located and each of them affirmed that they saw Liew slowing down to allow some of the runners to catch up.
SNOC offered Soh the opportunity to view the eyewitnesses’ statutory declarations after serving him the legal letter, but he did not take up the offer.
It added, “At 5.03pm yesterday, the firm of Eugene Thuraisingam LLP representing Mr Soh sent a fax reply to SNOC’s lawyer from Rajah & Tann. Essentially, Mr Soh informed SNOC that he will not retract or withdraw his allegations about Mr Liew.”
Soh wants to put matter behind
In his reply, Soh said he had sought to see the statutory declarations on 2 April, a day after he was served SNOC’s legal letter. He claimed that Chris Chan, SNOC’s secretary general, said that the declarations were with the council’s lawyers and that they would contact Soh. However, Soh said he has not heard from the lawyers.
He added, “On my part I’m happy to move on – let’s put this matter behind us and now focus on preparing for the 2019 SEA Games and 2020 Olympics.”
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