AYG Athletics: Inez Leong and Ranjitha Raja qualify for 100m hurdles and 800m finals respectively

Story by Colin Tung/Red Sports. Pictures by Les Tan/Red Sports.

Bishan Stadium, Wednesday, July 1, 2009 – Inez Leong clocked a time of 16.01 seconds to qualify for the 100m hurdles girls’ final this afternoon. She was third in the first of two heats and her time was almost one second slower than her personal best of 15.14s set at the National Inter-School Track and Field Championships in April.

In the final tomorrow, she will have to summon an effort nearer her personal best for any chance of a medal as her qualifying time puts her at fifth-best of seven athletes. She will be going up against Ueda Mayu of Japan who clocked 14.83s, the fastest qualifier, as well as Park Seulgi of Korea who clocked 14.90s in the second heat. Mayu and Seulgi are the only two to have gone under 15s in the heats.

After the race, Inez said of her aim in the final: “I hope to go sub-15s. It doesn’t matter how much under. Even if it’s 14.99s, it’ll still be good.”

When asked why she was so far off her personal best time, Inez wondered: “Maybe I was too nervous. It is my first time at a big competition like this so my focus wasn’t really there.”

With her ‘O’ Levels looming ahead this year, the Secondary Four student from CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School has to balance the demands of competition and studies.

“This is my ‘O’ levels year so I brought books to the hotel to study,” she shared in a stark reminder of the academic demands that Singapore youths have to handle. Fellow Secondary Four student and 100m runner Shahrir had also revealed yesterday after his heat of his plan to study at the hotel ahead of the final on Friday.

Moving on to the 800m girls’ heats in which Ranjitha Raja was running her second race in as many days, the second heat saw markedly improved fortunes for the 16-year-old girl after she had finished ninth of ten finishers in the 1500m girls’ final yesterday.

She clocked 2 minutes 32.02 seconds to finish third in the heat and qualified as one of the top-seven runners.

Over at the sandpit, triple jumper Nurshaishireen bettered her personal best mark of 11.05m but it was not enough for her to replicate fellow jumper Melissa Wu’s medal-winning achievement a day earlier. Her 11.08m effort got her fifth position.

The girls’ triple jump was won by Kim Jong Gum of the People’s Republic of Korea with a distance of 12.34m. Yang Xiuhong of China and Solovyova Alexandra of Kazakhstan won the silver and bronze medals with efforts of 12.17m and 11.91m respectively.

The triple jump was one of three finals on the second day of competition. The other two were the girls’ shot put and the pole vault competitions.

In the shot put, Golahmadi Nazanin of the Islamic Republic of Iran won the gold ahead of Omar Ba Fatima of Qatar in a two-way competition. Nazanin threw a distance of 8.77m while Ba Fatima only managed an 8.21m.

In the pole vault, Xu Huiqin of China cleared 3.75m to get the gold ahead of Odajima Remi of Japan and Jong Un Sim of the People’s Republic of Korea who got the silver and bronze medals with height clearances of 3.55m and 3.00m respectively.

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