Vietnamese Taekwondo team sues referee to reclaim SEA Games gold medal.

(Dan Tri Newspaper) - The Vietnamese taekwondo team is suing the referees, claiming they showed favoritism towards Singaporean athletes in the final of the mixed doubles poomsae (forms) event.

The final of this event took place this afternoon (December 10th) at the Gymnasium in Fashion Island shopping mall (Bangkok). Athletes Nguyen Trong Phuc and Nguyen Thi Kim Ha completed their performances with technical scores of 8.50 - 8.38.

Two Vietnamese athletes, Nguyen Trong Phuc and Nguyen Thi Kim Ha (Photo: Khoa Nguyen).

The sadness of athletes after being disqualified (Photo: Khoa Nguyen).

Meanwhile, the Singaporean athletes scored between 8.84 and 8.50. The judges ruled that the Singaporean athletes won the gold medal.

However, members of the Vietnamese taekwondo team were dissatisfied with the referee's decision. From the Vietnamese team's perspective, the referees overlooked three fouls during the Singapore team's performance, while being overly strict in scoring the Vietnamese athletes.

The Vietnamese national team has decided to sue the referee (Photo: NH).

Members of the Vietnamese taekwondo team expressed their frustration (Photo: NH).

Philippine Taekwondo Federation Honorary President Abraham Tolentino also expressed frustration with the referees, similar to the Vietnamese team (Photo: NH).

At the same time that the Vietnamese team was appealing against the referee's decisions, the Philippine team also expressed dissatisfaction with the referee's decisions. The Philippines were the team that lost to Singapore in the semi-finals.

Present at the arena in the Fashion Island shopping mall, the honorary president of the Philippine Taekwondo Federation, Abraham Tolentino, said: “The scoring system is completely unfair. The referees did not show video footage of the match situations. I know that Vietnamese athletes are in a similar situation to us.”

Previously, in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles kata event, the Malaysian team complained that the referee favored the host country, Thailand. The Malaysian team argued that they performed better than Thailand, but Malaysia was still declared the loser.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/taekwondo-viet-nam-kien-trong-tai-de-doi-lai-hcv-sea-games-20251210132403343.htm