MUAR MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman has admitted to an “honest mistake” that led to his disqualification from the 113 Triathlon Desaru 2024, where he initially claimed third place. This admission comes five hours after he denied allegations of cheating.
In an Instagram Reel video, the former youth and sports minister revealed that following discussions with the event organisers, his race status had been changed to DNF (did not finish).
Syed Saddiq explained that he completed three laps of the bike course as required but mistakenly did the first lap as part of the 40km specified for the Olympic race category.
“I immediately flagged this with the first technical team. I was then informed that there was no problem, and continued as usual. The first technical team comprised two officers who can testify to this,” he stated.
“Now, the latest data shows that I did complete three loops and crossed all the checkpoints, but the first loop at the beginning was for the Olympic race instead of the 113 (triathlon race category).
“Laps two and three had no problems, thus explaining why it wasn’t two loops at 60km but three loops at 72km,” he added.
Syed Saddiq participated in the race over the weekend, originally posting on Instagram that he finished in five hours and 44 minutes.
However, a social media user accused him of completing only two loops (60km) of the bike course instead of the required three loops (90km), questioning how he could have finished the bike course in two hours and 37 minutes when he took three hours and 31 minutes in the Ironman race in May.
In response to the criticism, Syed Saddiq shared his data from the Strava app, showing he completed the race in five hours and 47 minutes.
“The reason why I didn’t share this early on is because some ‘facts’ were just not accurate. For example, my Apple Watch showed that I only swam for 100m, while as the race has proven, it was 2.25km.
“At the same time, the registered running time was also much later than reported. That is why I waited for the official data for cross-referencing.
“This was an honest mistake on my part. Despite double-checking the problem during the race and notifying the technical team, I should still have been more responsible as a participant,” he concluded. – July 10, 2024
