Representatives of the overall winners in the secondary school section posing with Rahman (left) and Aishah during the prize presentation.
SANTUBONG: Host SMK Santubong and Lundu Zone emerged overall champions of the secondary schools and primary school sections respectively at the Sarawak Schools Sports Council (MSSS) Cross Country Championship that ended at SMK Santubong football field yesterday.
For the overall title, SMK Santubong collected aggregate points of seven, which was aided by winning the Girls U18 and Boys U15 titles with aggregate points of 52 and 31 respectively.
Apart from that, they were also first runners-up in the Girls U15 and third in Boys U18.
SMK Santubong was followed by Sarawak Sports School SMK Tabuan Jaya in second place with 12 points and SMK Sematan third with 14 points.
The Girls U15 title was won by SMK Tabuan Jaya with 48 aggregate points while SMK Sematan walked away with the Boys U18 title after collecting 75 aggregate points.
The primary school section saw Lundu Zone collecting 94 aggregate points, followed by Kuching Zone B with 145 aggregate points while Kuching Zone A was third on 250 aggregate points.
Lundu Zone clinched the Boys U12 crown with 51 aggregate points and was third in the Girls U12 with 121 aggregate points.
The champions of the Girls U12 was Bau Zone who collected 43 aggregate points.
A total of 603 students from 25 secondary schools and primary schools from five zones took part in the event jointly organised by SMK Santubong and the Kuching District Education Office.
The top finishers of all categories namely Boys U18, U15, U12 and Girls U18, U15 and U12 will represent Kuching at the state-level cross country championship at Subis, Miri on Feb 7 where the winners will be selected to represent Sarawak in the national meet in Pahang on March 7.
In closing the event, Pantai Damai assemblyman Dr Abdul Rahman Junaidi urged the participants especially the winners to strive for greater heights and one day become well known athletes like Malaysian diving queen Pandelela Rinong, Bryan Nickson Lomas, “Flying Dayak” Watson Nyambek and the “King of South-east Asia Long Distance” M Ramachandran.
“This is not impossible to achieve as long as we continue to work hard to achieve our aims,” he said, adding that he hoped the students would excel as an all-rounder, not only in sports but academically as well.
Also present were Kuching District Education Office Human Resource Development unit head Yazit Belon and SMK Santubong principal Aishah Ahmad.