‘My feat can be bettered’

> Ex-athlete Rajkumar believes his 800m time can be improved through hard work

KUALA KUBU BARU: National 800m record holder B. Rajkumar ( pix) is confident that Malaysian athletes can break his 32year-old record set at the Asian Athletics Championships 1985 in Indonesia.

He said it was not easy to break the record considering that the current training pattern for athletes in the country was different from the training that he had gone through for seven years, Bernama reported.

“There is a lot of potential (in our athletes) and I see the progress is there … but they need a proper guide in the middledistance run and a lot of hard work. It is a long-term project of between six and 10 years before you can see the results.

“It is not just for one or two years and then you stop. It doesn’t work that way,” he said at the Merdeka Kuala Kubu Baru 21km Road Relay 2017.

Rajkumar, 52, was commenting on the inability of national athletes to beat the record until today, even at the recent Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.

He said the current athletes could break his time of 1 minute and 47.37 seconds in the 800m, just like how Khairul Hafiz Jantan broke the 42year-old record by Tan Sri Dr M. Jegathesan in the 200m.

“Frankly, if someone wants to break this record, I think you need to wait for the next big plan in track and field, especially in the middle-distance run,” he said.

The Kuala Kubu Baruborn former athlete said he was proud of the achievements by young athletes at the SEA Games but they needed international exposure.

“Efforts at all levels are needed to bring back the glory days of athletics,” he said, adding that the 21km road relay was the best platform to unearth new talent.

Over 300 participants took part in the event, mooted by Rajkumar himself, to vie for cash prizes totalling RM12,000.