17-year-old diver Avvir Tham wins Singapore’s first 31st SEA Games medal with silver
Avvir Tham competes in the men's 1m springboard final. (Photo: Andy Chua/SportSG)
HANOI: One of the Instagram story highlights on 17-year-old Avvir Tham’s Instagram page is titled “Fails”.
Click on it and you will see a series of dive attempts over the last few years where the diver lands on his back, his belly or on all fours, often in painful fashion.
“Sometimes things don’t go right when you are diving and it’s just a flop,” the bubbly youngster explained. “In diving, it is not just rips (entries) or nicely executed dives. People like to see the other side of things.”
But on Monday (May 9), the Games debutant did anything but fail as he held his nerve to win Singapore’s first medal of the 31st SEA Games.
At the Aquatics Sports Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, Tham, 17, clinched silver in the men’s 1m springboard finals with a score of 286.40.
After six dives, Malaysia’s defending champion Ooi Tze Liang took gold with a score of 377.70.
Organisers initially flashed a total score of 266.30 for Malaysia's Bertrand Rhodict Anak Lises, putting him behind Thailand's Chawanwat Juntaphadawon for the bronze medal. Juntaphadawon finished with a score of 281.45.
But an official count after the event showed that the Malaysian scored 284.90, with the first dive scoring 43.20 instead of 27.90. Rhodict took home the bronze medal.
LOOKING AHEAD
While this was Tham’s first Games, he said he had been hoping to get a medal.
“I think everybody expects to stand on the podium when they compete in their events,” he said.
An avid user of Tiktok, the bubbly Tham said many of his social media followers had sent him messages of encouragement which spurred him on during the competition.
“I read those messages that people sent me. That really gave me the courage (and made me see that) there’s so many people backing me up and this allowed me to do my best,” he added.
Tham is already looking forward to the competitions to come.
“I’m definitely looking forward to Olympics 2024. Now, there have been a lot of competitions pushed back, like Asian Games (which was supposed to be) this year, and the World Uni Games,” he said.
“I’ll just try to upgrade my dive difficulty and move along forward, and to win first place at the next SEA Games.”
At the 2017 Games, Singapore took bronze in the event courtesy of diver Mark Lee, who has since retired.
Later in the day, Fong Kay Yian and Ashlee Tan finished third in the women’s 3m synchronised springboard finals. As only three pairs of divers competed in the event, no bronze medal was awarded to the pair.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct winner of the bronze medal.
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