Men's 4x100m quartet breaks national record

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian athletics received another boost leading up to the Kuala Lumpur 2017 SEA Games next month when the men's 4x100m quartet broke the national record at the Vietnam Open Athletics Championship, Thursday.

The quartet comprising national king sprint Khairul Hafiz Jantan, Badrul Hisyam Abdul Manap, Jonathan Nyepa and Muhammad Haiqal Hanafi clocked 39.62 seconds to win the gold medal.

They erased the previous record of 39.67 seconds set by the quartet of Jonathan, Mohd Izzudin Yahaya, Harith Ammar Mohd Sobri and Nixson Kennedy at the 2015 Singapore SEA Games.

Two Vietnamese quartets took silver and bronze respectively after clocking 40.57 seconds and 41.19 seconds, respectively.

National athletics head coach Zainal Abas was extremely delighted with the great achievement of the young quartet and praised national sprint coach Mohd Poad Md Kassim for an excellent job.

"I'm very proud with what they have achieved and I'm sure coach Poad will continue to push them to greater heights. This is just the beginning for them. If you look at this quartet Haiqal is 18, Khairul is 19, Badrul is 20 and Jonathan is 21.

"This is a very young team and I'm confident we can expect much much more from them, and even this record would not last for long," added Zainal.

Zainal pointed out that the new timing would certainly boost the confidence and would give the quartet an opportunity to fight for the gold medal at the upcoming SEA Games which takes place from Aug 19-30.

"However, we must also be wary of the ability of the quartet from Indonesia and Thailand, who have both recorded better times than us this year. We shouldn't take them for granted, but on the plus point we can now fight for the medals," Zainal asserted. Bernama