Sibu Open track and field championship attracts 470 athletes

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KUCHING: Over 470 athletes from various clubs and schools will compete in the Sibu Open track and field championship at Stadium Tun Zaidi from Sept 1 to 2.

Organised by Sibu Amateur Athletic Association (SAAA), the annual event offers over RM15,000 in prize money for selected events courtesy of corporate sponsors and the association.

“Response towards this year’s event is encouraging and I believe all the best athletes in Sarawak will give their best to vie for top honours and a good share of the prize money,” SAAA secretary, Ting Siew Nguong said yesterday.

According to him, some teams from Sabah and West Malaysia who have earlier on shown keen interest in the event will not be coming although one had registered while others did not submit their registration as at Aug 15 which was the closing date for entries.

“As in previous meets, we have schools which have good athletes such as SMK Tabuan Jaya who are sending about 50 athletes, SMK Chung Hua Miri and Riam Road Secondary School Miri,” added Ting.

“We are hoping to unearth new talents who can be groomed to represent Sarawak in national competitions,” said Ting on the special attention to be given to the age groups competition such as the Under 14 and Under 11.

This is because Sarawak needs to prepare for next year’s Majlis Sukan Sekolah-Sekolah Malaysia (MSSM) track and field championship.

“We are strong in the field events but not so in the track events so we need to produce more athletes who are good in track events if we want to retain our overall championship crown next year,” he said.

Meanwhile, the selected premier events and the list of sponsors are namely the long jump event (Open and Under 14 – Prudential Agnes Team), high jump (Open and Under 14 – Sibu AAA), 100m (Open – KTS Sdn Bhd, Under 14 and Under 11 – Ta Ann Holdings), 80m hurdles, 100m hurdles, 110m hurdles (Under 14, Under 11 – McDonalds), 3,000m and 5,000m (Open – Sibu Marathon Sports Club), discus (Open and Under 14 – TN Sports), 800m (Open and Under 14 – KTS Sdn Bhd) and 400m (Open and Under 14 – Delta Leasing Bhd).

Apart from the above, SAAA will also award the top three winners of selected premier events cash prizes ranging from RM300 to RM500 each.

Athletes who achieve record breaking feats will each receive RM50 extra for the open category and RM20 for the Under 14 and Under 11 categories.

Champions in the team events for the open category will get RM500 while the runner-up team will receive RM300 and third placing RM200.

The Boys and Girls under 14 teams will get RM300, RM200 and RM100 respectively while the Under 11 teams will get RM200, RM150 and RM100 respectively.