Throughout the history of
badminton events at the SEA Games, this is the first time that there has been a restriction on participation for the mixed team event: the countries affected by this restriction are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. However, this is also the first time the mixed team event has been contested. Usually, badminton has seven gold medals in contention, with two medals from the men's and women's team events, and five from the individual events. Bambang Roedyanto, a technical official for the games, claimed that “Cambodia [wanted] the opportunity to win medals from [badminton], so [the mixed team event] was held with countries [with developing badminton teams]”. Cambodian badminton player Chourng Meng was revealed to be Chinese badminton player Zhou Meng, the runner-up of the girls' singles event at the
2019 BWF World Junior Championship: in a video that has gone viral, Chourng was suddenly pulled off the field by a man presumed to be a Cambodian official while celebrating her victory in the final. Apart from leaving the field early, Chourng was also absent from the mixed team medal ceremony. ==References==