SINGAPORE — Marathoner Ashley Liew’s management team, ONEathlete Team, has lashed out at SEA Games champion Soh Rui Yong — calling his refusal to retract his “false allegations” about Liew “a wilful act of blatant disregard, poor sportsmanship and improper conduct”.

ONEathlete also said in a media statement on Tuesday (April 2) that it would “examine all legal options available to Ashley in light of current developments”.

This comes a day after the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) — which had nominated Liew for an award for his act of sportsmanship — served Soh a legal letter demanding that the national marathoner publicly retract his allegations and admit that his claims were wrong.

In October last year, Soh put up a Facebook post disputing Liew’s account of events at the 2015 SEA Games which saw the latter awarded the Pierre de Coubertin World Fair Play Trophy. Liew said then that he had slowed down to allow his rivals to catch up after they missed a U-turn and took the wrong path.

ONEathlete had previously said the allegations had “no material basis” and questioned Soh’s motives. The SNOC also stood by its decision to nominate Liew for the award.

In its media statement on Tuesday, ONEathlete noted that Soh had “continued to maintain his allegations insinuating that Ashley had lied”.

“Soh’s allegations had unfairly cast doubt over ONEathlete, Ashley Liew’s repute as an individual, working professional and national athlete, as well as the merit and integrity of nominating Ashley for and the eventual award of the Pierre de Coubertin World Fair Play Trophy in 2016.”

The agency said it did not respond further to Soh’s “incessant aspersions” because it did not “stand for, nor identify with such regrettable behaviour from a fellow athlete”.

Following Soh’s claims, Filipino runner Rafael Poliquit — who was among the 12-strong field in the SEA Games race — and two witnesses who had previously coached Soh also backed up Soh’s version of events.

However, the SNOC’s legal letter said that it had, through its solicitors Rajah & Tann, interviewed various witnesses, with four of them providing sworn statutory declarations that they saw Liew slowing down for the other runners. However, they did not name the witnesses.

ONEathlete said in its statement that Poliquit had received coaching advice from Soh and that the other witnesses were Soh’s coaches, while the four individuals who provided the declarations were “independent witnesses”.

The agency noted that Soh had “chosen to turn a blind eye” to the statutory declarations, refused to retract his allegations and instead “sought to aggravate matters by repeating his allegations in his social media postings”.

“Such an approach by Soh only serves as an aggravating factor to his initial conduct of falsely accusing another athlete of lying, and in so doing, has brought the sport into disrepute,” ONEathlete said.

It added: “Soh’s refusal to retract his false allegations in the face of the four statutory declarations is an extension of his wilful act of blatant disregard, poor sportsmanship and improper conduct which goes against Singapore Athletics’ Athlete’s Code of Conduct.”