Former champ laments the decline of national athletics

Nguyen Van Lai of Vietnam crosses the finish line first in the men's 5000m final at the Singapore SEA Games last week. - AFP

KUALA LUMPUR: The recently-concluded Singapore SEA Games brought joy and sadness to former national long distance runner M. Ramachandran.

Twenty-two years ago, he blitzed the track in the 5,000m race to post a new Games record of 14:08.97 at the 1993 Singapore Games.