CHAMPIONS AGAIN: The Sarawak contingent celebrating their 16th victory in the Malaysian Schools Sports Council (MSSM) Track and Field Championship at Stadium Utama, Kangar, Perlis yesterday.
KUCHING: Sarawak emerged overall champion for a record 16 times despite not winning any gold on the final day of the 54th Malaysian Schools Sports Council (MSSM) Track and Field Championship at Stadium Utama, Kangar, Perlis yesterday.
The state’s relay teams which were expected to deliver more gold yesterday only managed to collect three more silver and a bronze. But what mattered most was Perak’s haul of two gold medals yesterday, was not enough to stop Sarawak from winning their 16th overall championship with a total of 15 gold, 20 silvers and 8 bronzes.
Sarawak’s silver medals came from Ling Hung Er who finished second in the Boys U12 200m with a time of 28.26s, Girls U12 4x200m relay team who timed 1:55.76s after Perak (1:54..66s) and Boys U12 4x200m (1:43.34s).
The solitary bronze was won by Betty Hoong King Ching who threw the shot put to a distance of 9.65m in the Girls U15.
Her teammate Queenie Ting Kung Ni was placed eighth with a mark of 8.80m.
While the state’s Girls U15 team were disqualified in the 4x400m race along with Perak, the Boys U15 team only finished seventh in the 4x400m relay race, with the gold going to Selangor team who clocked 3:30.48s.
Michelle Mangin, who won the triple jump gold on the third day, failed to perform up to expectations as she only managed 4.94m to finish fourth while teammate Erlyisiana Jhatty Buma came in 10th with a jump of 4.55m in the Girls U15 long jump that was won by Perak’s Kirthana Ramasamy who registered 5.16m.
Kuala Lumpur won the final event of the championship, the Boys U18 4x400m relay, with a time of 3:20.96s while Kedah came in second with 3:22.08s and Selangor were third in 3:22.29s.
Team manager Hassan Wa’Gani said although Sarawak had won the overall champions title again, the overall performance was not up to expectations.
“You can see we won 15 gold, 20 silver and 8 bronze medals. If only a quarter of the silvers could become gold, it would be a good result,” he said in a telephone interview from Kangar.
The gold medals were mostly won in the field events and Sarawak were glaringly weak in the Boys U18 and Girls U18 categories.
Hassan said there were many near misses which resulted in the state athletes winning the silvers and other factor like the weather also affected the athletes’ performance and morale.
This year the state did not win any best athlete awards.
However, there was some consolation as two meet records were broken by the state’s athletes.
Grace Wong Xiu Mei erased her own record of 11.96s in the Girls U12 shot put set in 2011 with a new record of 13.61m while Jonathan Tinggang Ngabong broke the seven-year Boys U15 high jump record of 1.95m set by Poh Yu Shen of Johor by jumping to a new height of 1.96m.
According to Hassan, Perak, who hosted the championship last year, had improved by leaps and bounds.
“They got 13 gold and they are really well prepared for the competition this year,” he said, adding that states like Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Johor, Kelantan and Negeri Sembilan were fast coming up.
Runners-up Perak won 13 gold, 16 silver and 10 bronze while Kuala Lumpur finished third on 9 gold, 5 silver and 10 bronze.
Selangor pushed Sabah to fifth place by winning 9 gold, 3 silver and 8 bronze against the latter’s 8 gold, 8 silver and 7 bronze.
The host team Perlis managed to win a bronze to finish second last while table-proppers Labuan returned home empty-handed.