17-year-old diver Avvir Tham wins Singapore’s first 31st SEA Games medal with silver

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. 

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,”