Story by Colin Tung/Red Sports. Photos by Lim Yong Teck/Red Sports
Muhammad Nasiruddin Jumari (#305) of Swift Athletes Association clinched the top men’s under-23 performer award when he cleared 1.99m in the high jump to finish first. (Photo 1 © Lim Yong Teck/Red Sports)
Kallang Practice Track, Sunday, October 12, 2014 — The newly-opened Kallang Practice Track hosted its first meet – the National Under-23 and Open Track and Field Championships – over the weekend.
Muhammad Nasiruddin and Eugenia Tan won awards for the best male and female under-23 performers respectively.
Nasiruddin’s clearance of 1.99 metres in the high jump and Eugenia’s time of 12.59sec (2.0 m/sec wind) in the 100m heats gave them 905 and 878 points (according to the International Association of Athletics Federations scoring table for outdoor events) respectively.
Nasiruddin’s performance also beat the top (and only) high jumper in the men’s open category, who posted a mark of 1.80 metres.
Eugenia was the fastest 100m woman of the weekend as the open category was not contested. Though she clocked a slower time of 12.72sec in the final later the same afternoon, it was enough to beat the 13.06sec timing of second-placed Menon Smriti of Wings Athletics Club.
In the men’s middle distances, Soh Hua Qun of the National University of Singapore showed good form to win the open category of both the 800m and 1500m. He clocked 1 minute 58.61 seconds in the 800m on Saturday and 4:05.03 in the 1500m on Sunday.
After the 1500m, the 23-year-old said, “I tried to go for my target, which is 3:58 [the bronze medal mark of the last Southeast Asian (SEA) Games and the qualifying mark for the 2015 edition in Singapore]. Overall, I feel that it’s just the last lap that I need to work on, which is the kick. I think that there’s a lot more time for me to work on speed, so I believe there is a great chance for me to actually go below 3:58, even before SEA Games.”
The accountancy undergraduate, who is slated to compete at the ASEAN University Games (AUG) in Palembang, Indonesia, in December, also added, “I want to go for AUG gold for both 800m and 1500m.”
While Hua Qun had his sights set on fine-tuning ahead of the AUG, the 4x100m team of Calvin Kang, Lim Yao Peng, Loh Guo Pei, and Khan Meng Linn were looking to the National Under-23 and Open Championships as the last opportunity they could post a qualifying time for the AUG.
“Since all of us are in a local university, we just thought of trying together,” said Calvin, a mainstay of the national 4x100m relay team.
The quartet’s winning time of 42.26sec, however, fell short of the qualifying time of 41.07sec. Stitched together with two athletes who are not specialist 100m sprinters (Guo Pei is a 400m runner and Meng Linn is a long jumper), they expressed optimism at being able to improve with more time together.
“We’re going to try to appeal and see whether we can still run. We haven’t trained; this is the first time together,” said Calvin.
Guo Pei and Meng Linn were not the only ones trying out new events. Former 400m and 400m hurdles runner Lance Tan competed and won medals in four events in the men’s open category – shot put (8.92m for third out of three competitors), long jump (6.37m for second out of seven competitors), pole vault (3.00m for first as the sole competitor), and discus throw (23.53m for third out of three competitors).
Lance, who is training to qualify for the SEA Games decathlon (an event consisting 10 disciplines traditionally held over two days) next year, said, “They are all very new events to me. I set myself targets and I think I hit them all today … so I’m definitely going in the right direction for my training and preparations.”
Full results here.
More photos next page
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