SINGAPORE - The second day of the defamation suit brought by marathoner Ashley Liew against former teammate Soh Rui Yong on Wednesday (Sept 2) saw lawyers from both parties engaged in heated exchanges over the former's act of sportsmanship at the 2015 SEA Games.

Liew is accusing Soh of defaming him in five instances via comments made on social media about the former's account of an incident during the SEA Games marathon final. Liew said he had slowed down to allow other runners to catch up after they missed a U-turn and took the wrong path. His actions earned him sportsmanship awards from the Singapore National Olympic Council and the International Fair Play Committee.

Liew, 33, is represented by Mark Teng from That.Legal LLC and Soh, 29, is represented by Clarence Lun from Foxwood LLC.

Day 2 of the civil suit saw both lawyers engaged in a testy back and forth in the State Court with Lun accusing Teng of "trying to shut evidence before this honourable court"after numerous interruptions from the latter, who pointed out that Lun was "asking the same question over and over again".

Questioned about the U-turn incident on Tuesday, Liew had said in court that the order of runners was "somewhat restored" at the 700m mark, where his act of fair play had ended, and he estimated that the other runners took between 2min 30sec to 2min 45sec to catch up with him.

Lun on Wednesday morning repeatedly pressed Liew on this, saying: "For a runner to run 700m in two and a half minutes is an extremely quick pace where an ordinary man like me would end up in hospital at that pace.

"Why didn't you tell the full facts, that you slowed down at 700m and everyone took two and a half minutes to catch up? You could have done the right thing, you could have told everyone your full facts."

Liew replied: "The fact being, I slowed down."

Following Teng's objections that his counterpart was "going round and round in circles", Lun countered: "The plaintiff wants to interrupt the flow to prevent his client's inconsistency and lies from being exposed."

District Judge Lee Li Choon then interjected: "I have allowed those questions but with regard to the evidence on the 700m and two and a half minutes which you had gone on ad nauseam, I'm telling you that this is a matter of evidence."

Stating that this would have to be "properly adduced by an expert", the judge later clarified this with Liew, suggesting that Google Maps be used to verify the distance.

Liew recalled that there was a grass clearing on his right as the pack of 10 runners were chasing him down, which appeared on Google Maps to be around the 500m mark from the U-turn point.

District Judge Lee said that it had been identified earlier that the bridge where Liew was overtaken by Cambodia's Kuniaki Takizaki was 308m away from the U-turn point and that Liew said in his affidavit that Takizaki took about one and a half minutes to do so.

Pointing out that if Liew's 700m estimate was accurate, the judge said this would mean that Liew ran a further 400m in a minute. Liew said that it was a range between 500m and 700m.

Lun objected to the use of the grass clearing as a landmark, saying: "If this clearing is so important to (Liew), he should have insisted that it is a landmark because he is a professional runner. We're met with shifting goalposts."

But the judge pointed out that Liew had said in his affidavit that it took another minute for the chasing pack to catch up with him after Takizaki overtook him, and that these specific details were provided as evidence in the affidavit.

She also noted that Liew "didn't change his testimony with regard to the two and a half minutes".

Lun's cross examination of Liew continues on Thursday.