A controversial situation occurred at the 33rd SEA Games pencak silat when Thai boxer Phiraphon Mittasan was unexpectedly stripped of his gold medal right before the awards ceremony, after the organizing committee approved the complaint from the Malaysian delegation.
According to Thai media, Phiraphon Mittasan was announced as the winner of the 60-65kg weightlifting final, defeating Muhammad Issul (Malaysia) with a score of 60-57. However, the Malaysian sports delegation did not accept the results and submitted a complaint to the referee team.
The first complaint was not approved, but right before the athletes stepped onto the podium to receive medals, the Malaysian delegation continued to submit a second complaint. This time, the judges decided to review the entire match and make a reversal decision, recognizing Muhammad Issul as the overall winner. As a result, Phiraphon Mittasan, from the position of winning the gold medal, was surprised to only receive a silver medal.
The incident continues to spark controversy surrounding the refereeing of pencak silat at the 33rd SEA Games. Previously, many matches had to face reactions from sports delegations because they thought that the scoring was inconsistent, directly affecting the competition results.
Not only Malaysia or Thailand, Vietnamese athletes also recorded controversial situations. On December 16, some Vietnamese fighters suffered defeat despite having an advantage in the competition. The case of Nguyen Minh Triet in the 65kg weight class attracted attention when this boxer suffered a strong hit to the neck, could not continue competing but was still defeated. Before that, boxer Vu Van Kien also burst into tears right on the ring when he was defeated in a semi-final match despite being considered the overwhelming advantage.
The above developments show that the management and scoring work at the 33rd SEA Games pencak silat is under a lot of pressure and needs to be carefully reviewed to ensure fairness and transparency for athletes.
