UP AND RUNNING AGAIN
Malaysian athletics picks itself up from the doldrums
SIGNS of life have finally emerged in Malaysian athletics after a new breed of athletes won eight gold medals at the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games to offer the sport hope for the future.
In the doldrums for most of the past decade, Malaysia recovered from the trough of despair after a worst-ever three gold medal haul at the 2015 Sea Games in Singapore.
But thanks to the National Sports Council’s (NSC) Kita Juara programme, a bunch of young and exciting athletes emerged to lead the renaissance of Malaysian athletics.
Khairul Hafiz Jantan fulfilled the promise he showed last year by breaking Tan Sri Dr M. Jegathesan’s 200m national record after 49 years with a time of 20.90 seconds before going on to win the 100m gold medal at the Sea Games, ending a wait of 14 years.
The 19-year-old sprinter is being touted as Malaysia’s next big thing with hope of shining at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
But it is not just Khairul who had a breakout year as 14 new national records will attest.
High jumper Nauraj Singh Randhawa won a third consecutive gold medal at the Sea Games and qualified for the World Championships on merit.
After winning four international competitions in Australia, Spain and Singapore, Nauraj is ranked joint-13th in the 2017 IAAF Top Lists based on his personal best of 2.30m achieved in April.
That makes Nauraj Malaysia’s best hope of ending a 16-year Commonwealth Games medal drought in athletics at the Gold Coast next year.
Malaysia have only won three medals in the history of the Commonwealth Games through G. Saravanan’s gold in the men’s 50km walk in 1998, Hisham Khaironi’s silver in the men’s para 100m and Yuan Yufang’s women’s 20km walk bronze in 2002.
In another boost for athletics, discus thrower Irfan Shamshuddin and triple jumper Hakimi Ismail both joined Nauraj in the elite-level Podium Programme for next year.
Irfan won silver at the Asian Championships to end an eightyear medal drought for Malaysia at the meet in India in July and after setting a new national record of 62.55m, he is considered a contender for a medal at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia.
Hakimi returned to his best after struggling with injuries since winning Sea Games gold in 2015 and soared to a new national record of 16.77 metres in retaining his triple jump gold medal in August.
Others to set national records this year are marathon runner Tan Huong Leong, 110m hurdler Rayzam Shah Wan Sofian, pole vaulter Iskandar Alwi, hammer throwers Jackie Wong and Grace Wong, high jumper Yap Sean Yee, discus thrower Choo Kang Ni and Norliyana Kamaruddin in the heptathlon.
The men’s and women’s 4x100m quartets also set new national records while Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli twice bested G. Shanti’s women’s 100m national record in South Africa earlier this year.
But Husniah was denied an entry in the record books both times, first by the wind factor and then by doubts over the accuracy of the timing equipment.
The Sea Games success was soured by controversy, however, over the axing of the sprinter S. Komalam Shally on the eve of the competition for alleged disciplinary reasons.
The Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) failed to disclose what the true reasons were for dropping Komalam with her absence leaving a huge gap to fill in the women’s relay team.
MAF continue to remain heavily reliant on NSC funding, from grassroots development to overseas exposure and training for national athletes, making the national body effectively irrelevant where uncovering talent is concerned.
A proposed national grand prix circuit also has yet to take off despite repeated pledges by MAF to get it going.
A hodpodge of state meets is all local athletes have to look forward to and the haphazard scheduling of the competitions does little to help with planning for the athletes.