Filipino divers dubbed as ‘Splash Brothers’ in SEA games

Filipino divers John Elmerson Fabriga and John David Pahoyo (Photo screengrab from SEA Games’ video)

Filipino divers John Elmerson Fabriga and John David Pahoyo landed flat on their backs and created splashes and ripples in their 3-meter springboard event performances at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

Philippine Sports Commission chair Richie Garcia will then call for aquatics chief Mark Joseph for an explanation of the incident, with the divers scoring zeroes from their two dives.

“I will give the opportunity for the Philippine Swimming Inc. president to explain because he fought for these divers to come here and compete… I saw these boys train at Rizal Memorial and they are good,” Garcia said.

The videos of Fabriga and Pahoyo, now derisively nicknamed as the “Splash Brothers,” went viral online, with netizens questioning their performance.

“This was not the first time I failed a dive, and I was not the first one who did so,” Pahoyo said to his defense, while remaining positive even with his unsatisfactory performance.

Despite Fabriga and Pahoyo finishing 7th and 8th in the final rankings, both were able to get in the scoreboard with their other dives.

Garcia urged the Filipinos to acknowledge other Filipino athletes’ great performances in athletics and boxing.

“Let’s not remove our good performance because we focus on the negative like the inverted flags,” Garcia said, referring to the inverted Philippine flags in the jerseys of sprinters Eric Cray and Kayla Richardson.