Correction: THREE national open records set at Negri Sembilan Open

The report:

I was pleasantly surprised to see this report in The Straits Times today. It was a brief in the Sports World Column:

Yang rewrites own record (The Straits Times, 29 April 2009)

 

SINGAPORE pole vaulter Rachel Yang set a national record in the Negri Sembilan Open on Saturday.

 

The 25-year-old cleared 3.75m, bettering her own mark set last year by 15cm. She finished third.

 

Yang’s record was one of three national records and three national junior marks set at the meet by Singapore’s athletes.

 

My thoughts:

My heartiest congratulations to Rachel for breaking her national record again. And my deepest apologies for missing out on her achievement in my previous post on Sunday. The information was not available to me then.

Two things to note:

a. Rachel is still almost a metre off the qualifying mark for the SEA Games which is 4.60m. I’m not sure if she can breach such a gap with seven months to go to the Games.

But no matter, what is important is that she continues to set new standards for herself which can only be good for Singapore athletics in the long run. May she continue to succeed in that area.

(Note from The Singapore Sports Fan, 29 April 2009, at 1130pm:

Please disregard the above. According to two readers (see ‘Comments’ below), Rachel has already qualified for the SEA Games. The qualifying mark was 3.80m which she met at the 4th All Comers Meet last month. However, that mark was not recognised as a national record because of IAAF rules.

This is why her 3.75m at the Negri Sembilan Open is the new national record. Many thanks to sl and ISD for pointing this out to me.) 

b. The Straits Times got it wrong, alas. Five – not three – national junior marks were set at the Negri Sembilan Open. Apart from Wayne Yap (high jump), Dipna Lim Prasad (100m hudles) and the 4x400m women’s relay team, Mariam Shazana and Stefan Tseng’s triple jump national records are also national junior marks.

Looking forward to seeing what our athletes can achieve at the Arafura Games in two weeks’ time

Yours in sport

Singapore Sports Fan

Related links:

26 April 2009 – Newsflash: Singapore athletes break five national records at Negri Sembilan Open 

11 June 2008 – Rachel vaults to a new high

Newsflash: Singapore athletes break five national records at Negri Sembilan Open

It’s been raining Singapore national records at the Negri Sembilan Open this weekend.

A total of two national open records and five national junior marks were broken by our athletes in what must be one of the best displays by a Singapore athletics contingent in recent memory.

Triple jumper Mariam Shazana got the ball rolling when she broke her national open and junior mark of 11.66 metres on Saturday. She cleared 11.70m on her third and then equalled it on her fourth attempt.

This is the fifth time the 17-year-old student has broken the national mark since 2006.

Today, a flood of record-breaking feats followed. 

Stefan Tseng also broke his national open and junior mark of 15.78m when he leapt 16.04m this afternoon. He not only won the event but also set a new championship record.

The 18-year-old student may have missed out on qualifying for the South-east Asian Games by 0.03 (the qualifying mark is 16.07m) but he can still take a lot of positives away from his performance.

Reason: Not onlyhas he broken the psychological barrier of cracking the 16m mark, he has also become the first Singapore jumper to ever clear 16m.

Stefan has several more meets lined up this year and there is no reason why we can’t expect him to break the record again and achieve his aim of qualifying for the Sea Games.

“I’m okay with his performance today because there was a strong head wind of -1.3m/s blowing against him today,” said his coach, Valeri Obidko. ” He would have jumped further if there wasn’t the head wind.”  

High jumper Wayne Yap also wrote his name into the national record books today. The Hwa Chong Institution student broke a 22-year-old junior mar when he cleared 2.08m. The previous mark of 2.07m was set by Mohd Azahar Sapuan’s in 1987.

Finally, Dipna Lim-Prasad entered her name twice in the national record books today.

The 18-year-old first set a new national junior mark in the Girls 100m hurdles when she finished third in her event in 15.40sec. That time shaved off 0.07sec off the existing mark of 15.47sec which was set by Amanda Tan last year.

Dipna then combined with Shalom Danielle See, T. Piriyah and Fiona Ng to set a new 4x400m relay junior record. The quartet won the event in a blistering 3min 56.70sec, smashing the year-old mark of 4:00.48.

Incidentlaly, that mark was set by Dipna, Shalom, Valerie Pereira and Ng Yu Jun last June in Indonesia.

The Singapore Sports Fan congratulates all our national athletes for a great job at the Negri Sembilan Open and hopes to see them continue breaking their own marks this year and in the near future.

Well done, guys and girls!

Yours in sport

Singapore Sports Fan

Singapore gets mauled by South Korea in Asian Five Nations debut

Here’s a report on Singapore’s match against South Korea. I got it from the IRB website.

This is the link in case you want to read about Japan’s 87-10 win over Kazakhstan:
http://www.irb.com/newsmedia/regional/newsid=2030935.html#formbook+tells+asian+five+nations

                                          Korea 65-0 Singapore

The two teams entered the Seongnam Stadium in Seoul with diametrically opposed targets as Singapore was intent on keeping the ball in tight to its forwards while Korea was looking to play an expansive match.  Despite frigid conditions and a late drizzle that should have kept Korea from experimenting too much, the home side put on a beautiful display of clutch handling, support play and cross-kicking to net 11 tries on the day, five of which were converted. 

Starting bravely, the Singapore Rugby Lions held the Koreans scoreless through the first quarter, but the Koreans looked threatening every time they had ball in hand and their stifling defence foiled Singapore’s game plan of retaining possession. 

In the 14th minute Korea’s offensive threat became reality as flanker Lee Kwang Moon opened the scoring after finishing off a flowing movement with the ball going through a host of Korean hands in both the pack and the backs.  Korea almost opened the floodgates then and there as from the kick-off a darting run by the scrum half Yang Young Hun nearly put flanker Lee Kwang Moon over again, but for a try-saving tackle by Singapore captain Ben Wheeler.
 
Making matters worse for Singapore, Mohammed Ismail “Izzy” A Kadir went down in the 22nd minute with a strained hamstring.  The loss of Kadir, a veteran player capped 32 times and the current leading scorer in the Singapore team with 100 points, left Singapore to fill the gaps with 20-year old Goh Beng Chuan on his test debut.  Predictably, the floodgates opened and by the 51st minute, three Korean players had each recorded a brace of tries.
 
Both teams rang in the changes in the second half, with Korea making liberal use of its bench at the interval.  Despite the personnel changes, Korea ran in a further six tries after half time as Singapore began to show the effects of an afternoon spent almost entirely in defence.

Singapore exhibited flashes of what it will need at this level, putting a few nice phases together and the back row of Wheeler, Andrew Bennett and James Valintine was workmanlike in its defensive effort. 

“It was a rough introduction to the Asian Five Nations premiership,” said Singapore captain Ben Wheeler, who put in a tireless effort around the park, “but we had our moments and did put a few phases together. Those are the positives we can take from today and are what we need to build on to compete at this level.” 

Korea 65

Tries: Lee, Kwang Moon (2), Choi Si Won (2), Kim Sung Soo (2), Han Hun Kyu (2), Kim Keun Hyun (2), Cha Yo Han (1)
Conversions: Hong Jun Ki (3), Kim Keun Hyun (2)

Singapore 0

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Yours in sport

Singapore Sports Fan