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Top marathoner Soh Rui Yong will be representing Singapore at the 2023 SEA Games in Cambodia this May, according to The Straits Times.

This marks the 31-year-old's return to a major competition after over five years.

ST reported that Soh received the green light from the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) on Thursday (Mar. 23) after being summoned to face a special appeals committee earlier in the week.

It is understood that the appeals committee consisted of:

• Shayna Ng (National bowler)
• Abdul Halim Kader (Former president of Singapore Sepak Takraw Federation)
• Michael Palmer (Lawyer and former MP)
• S. Sinnathurai (Former national taekwondo athlete)
• Juliana Seow (President of Fencing Singapore)
• Su Chun Wei (Chief of Singapore Sport Institute)

Mothership has reached out to SNOC for more comments.

Not enough time to prepare, but will still do his best

Soh told ST that although it is exciting to be back in a major competition again, he is apprehensive about the limited time he has to prepare.

In the past, Soh said that his preparation time was six months. However, he only has around six weeks to prepare now.

He added that he has yet to "scout [his] competition" but will still do all he can to prepare between now and race day.

Soh also stated that he is grateful to Singapore Athletics (SA) president Lien Choong Luen who he said "has been working hard behind the scenes to make this possible so I owe a lot to him".

On Saturday (Mar. 25), after ST broke the news of Soh's return to the SEA Games, the marathoner uploaded a post on Facebook and Instagram saying: "I’ll keep this simple. We back!"

Why was Soh absent from major competitions for so long?

After winning the SEA Games marathon gold in 2015 and 2017, Soh was embroiled in disputes with SNOC.

It started in 2017 when Soh received a formal warning from SNOC after he ignored the council's blackout period and promoted his personal sponsors ahead of the then Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.

His dispute with Ashley Liew

Soh was subsequently involved in a long-running dispute with fellow athlete Ashley Liew, with SNOC backing the latter.

Soh claimed that Liew's account of events surrounding his act of sportsmanship at the 2015 SEA Games was not true.

Both Soh and Liew were representing Singapore that year.

Liew was the only participant in the marathon who took the correct route, while the others missed a U-turn and took a different path.

As a result, Liew got ahead of everyone but slowed down to let the others catch up, before resuming his marathon pace.

While Soh won the race and Liew finished in eighth place, Liew won an international accolade and a special recognition from SNOC for his sportsmanship.

Through online posts between June 2015 and August 2019, Soh disputed that Liew had even slowed down at all.

Liew later sued for defamation.

Soh was eventually found guilty of defamation and was ordered to pay S$180,000, a decision which he appealed.

Soh's appeal against the district court's decision was dismissed by a High Court judge in March 2022.

His dispute with former SA vice-president and executive director

In August 2019, Soh was not selected for the Manila SEA Games even though he qualified for it.

SNOC said that Soh "displayed conduct that falls short of the standards of attitude and behaviour that the SNOC expects of and holds its athletes to".

This led to Soh suing SA and former SA vice-president and executive director Malik Aljunied for defamation.

Soh dropped his defamation suit against SA in October 2020, after coming to a settlement with SA.

As part of the settlement, SA withdrew "unconditionally" portions in its 2019 media statement stating that Soh "on several occasions breached [the Association’s] Athletic Code of Conduct” and “[f]or his transgressions, [the Association] had attempted to counsel and reason with him, as part of a holistic rehabilitation process”.

SA also apologised to Soh for "any inconvenience and distress" caused by the statement made against him in 2019 and agreed to stand down the disciplinary proceedings initiated by the outgoing management in September 2020.

In June 2022, he lost his defamation suit against Malik.

Public apologies to SNOC

In February 2022, Soh was once again not selected for the Hanoi SEA Games.

In response to this, Soh penned an apology to SNOC on his social media platforms.

However, in April 2022, Soh was omitted from the list of athletes representing Singapore at the Asian Games.

In October 2022, Soh apologised to the SNOC again and said that he wished to race for Singapore in future competitions.

Top image via Soh Rui Yong/Facebook.