A police report has been lodged over falsified results submitted by the Singapore Underwater Federation (SUF) for the 2023 Southeast Asean (SEA) Games selection.
Sport Singapore (SportSG) and the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) confirmed the bombshell revelation in a joint statement on 19 March.
A Committee of Inquiry (COI) was formed on July 1, 2024, to investigate the scandal, and after months of digging, it concluded in February 2025 that the SUF had cooked up a results sheet for an event that never even took place.
The women’s 4x200m relay surface team, Bernice Ting, Jovita Ho, Jamie Ang, and Vanessa Ong, was listed as having qualified for the Cambodia Games based on those phantom results.
They did eventually compete at the SEA Games but finished last.
According to SportSG and SNOC, the responsibility of submitting accurate data lies with national sports associations (NSAs).
However, the SUF not only bent the rules but “deliberately abused the system.”
While sample checks exist to catch discrepancies, they admitted that no system is foolproof against outright fraud.
The controversy centres on how the false results were submitted.
SUF’s former vice-president of sport, Desmond Ho, also the father of Jovita, admitted that the federation had planned to send both men’s and women’s relay teams to a competition in Malaysia in January 2023 to clock qualifying times.
However, only the men’s team competed.
Despite this, results for the women’s team were still submitted.
“During the time of appeal, something went wrong. Everybody started to put blame on me, because I’m the one who gave them (sport managers) the results, and then something is wrong,” said Ho to The Straits Times.
As a consequence, SUF’s membership was revoked by SNOC in December 2023 following a separate suspension by its international federation.
SportSG has also withdrawn support for the administrators, affected athletes, and coaches involved.
To prevent future abuses, SportSG announced stricter measures, including additional declarations from NSAs authenticating all selection-related documents submitted via the SportSync platform.
Sample checks will also be ramped up to ensure compliance and integrity in the selection process.
PHOTO: THE STRAITS TIMES