Sabah overpower S’wak for historic MSSM title
KUCHING: Sarawak chased frontrunner Sabah to the wire but could not deny her neighbouring state’s 43-year wait to capture the overall title on the final day of the 59th national schools track and field championships (MSSM) at the Penang City Stadium yesterday.
Sarawak athletes picked up five more gold medals to add to the eight from the first three days but it was not enough to overcome Sabah’s eventual tally of 14.
Brilliant individual performances and another relay victory by the U- 12 girls kept Sarawak in the tight battle for the title between the two states and Johor.
Grace Wong, who holds the national women’s record of 60.99m, threw 54.64m to break her own MSSM record of 52.70m in the Girls Open hammer.
Silver medallist Selangor’s Nurul Hidayah (44.37m) was the only other athlete in the field to throw more than 40m.
Johnny Ling and Fabian Sia made it a 1- 2 finish in the Boys Open event. Johnny also broke his own MSSM record of 59.48m by more than 9m with a new personal best of 68.53m.
A surprise gold came from William Koo in the Boys U-12 high jump.
William, who is from SK St Jude in Serian, who won on a countback after a tie with Kedah’s Mohd Firdaus Fitri on 1.53m.
Karen Rejie, who was the fastest in yesterday’s heats, did not disappoint by winning the Girls U12 200m with a time of 27.59sec.
When the competition broke for lunch break yesterday, Sarawak had caught up with overnight leader Sabah with 12 gold medals each, one more than Johor.
S ab ah, however, held a significant advantage in having collected 20 silver medals to Sarawak’s seven if the final tally came to a gold medal tie.
They were also expected to perform better in the six remaining events – the 4 x 200m relay ( U-12) and 4 x 400m relay ( U-15 & U-18). That forecast proved correct. Sarawak finished first in the Girls U-12 4x200m relay (1: 53.81) but Sabah replied immediately to win the boys race in 1: 41.30, snatching the gold from runnerup Sarawak (1: 43.94).
Sabah picked up their final gold with another win in the Girls U-18 4 x 400m relay in a time of 4min 08.11sec.
It was Sabah’s third MSSM overall title since victories in 1972 and 1974.
Sarawak , 2 0 - t ime MSSM champion, had also lost the overall crown to Selangor last year by the slim margin of a solitary gold.
Johor won the Girls U-15 4 x 400m relay to finish a close third with 12 gold ahead of Selangor with 10.