2nd Asian Youth Games: Singapore’s track and field athletes register 13 personal bests

Kugapriyad d/o Chandran (#86, centre) in action during the 2013 National Schools Track and Field Championships. She clocked two personal bests, including a blistering 12.40s run in the semi-finals, en route to finishing seventh in the girls’ 100m final at the 2nd Asian Youth Games. (Archive photo © Les Tan/Red Sports)

Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre Stadium, Nanjing, China, August 19-22, 2013 – Singapore’s athletes did not manage any podium finishes at the 2nd Asian Youth Games track and field competition, but they put up encouraging displays, with 10 of the 22 team members registering a total of 13 personal bests.

Singapore Sports School student Kugapriyad d/o Chandran ran three rounds of the 100 metres and clocked PBs in two of the three. She came into the meet with a best time of 12.71 seconds clocked at June’s Southeast Asian Youth meet, and erased that with her 12.65s in the heats into a headwind of 1.5 metres per second.

The 15-year-old then went even faster, running a startling 12.40s (+0.9 m/s) in the semi-finals to qualify for the final with the eighth fastest time. Kugapriyad then improved one position to seventh in the final, running a 12.42s but with a tailwind of 2.6 m/s.

Her performance at this age compares favourably with that of national record holder Shanti Pereira, who ran a best time of 12.39s at the same age.

(The age of an athlete, as determined by the International Amateur Athletics Federation, is how old he/she would be on December 31st of the year of the performance.)

Only Shanti (11.89s) and Wendy Enn (12.19s) have run faster than Kugapriyad this year.

Samuel Chin did not manage a personal best in the boys’ high jump, but finished joint-fourth with a best height of 1.95 metres. He was one of only three jumpers who entered the competition as late as at 1.85m, which he cleared with his second attempt.

Samuel then followed with first-time clearances at 1.90 and 1.95, before failing all three attempts at 2.00m.

The increasingly consistent 16-year-old Raffles Institution student has now cleared 1.97, 1.95, 1.94 and 1.93m in four different meets.

Jay Choo, 15, lowered his 110m hurdles PB of 14.84s twice, running 14.61s and 14.58s in the heats and final respectively. Shaun Moh also managed two PBs in the long jump. His 6.50m and 6.53m jumps in the qualifying round and final bettered his pre-Games best of 6.41m.

Muhd Afiq jumped out to a triple jump PB of 13.84m in the final, eclipsing his year-old PB of 13.68m to finish seventh, while Shohib bin Abdul Wahab Marican ran a superb time of 4 minutes 16.45 seconds in the boys’ 1500m final to finish eighth, over five seconds faster than his previous best of 4:22.10.

Singapore track and field athletes at the 2nd Asian Youth Games