WITH the advances in sports science and advancing training techniques, athletic records tend not to last too long.
Take the men's 100m sprint record, for example. Watson Nyambek's time of 10.30s, was set in 1998 before it was finally broken in 2016 by Khairul Hafiz Jantan's time of 10.18s. This record didn't stand as long before 19-year-old sprint sensation Mohd Azeem Fahmi broke the record in 2022 with a 10.09s time.
So is it true that the longest-standing Malaysian record has been unbroken for 37 years?
Verdict:
TRUE
Malaysia's middle distance runner Josephine Mary Singarayar's 800m record of 2:07.44 set during the 1986 Asian Games is the longest unbroken record in Malaysian athletics.
Josephine (right) crosses the finish line ahead of G. Shanti in the 200m race in an inter-bank meet in 1989.
There are other athletics records that have stood for more than twenty years.
M. Ramachandran's record in the 5,000m (14:06.84) and 10,000m (29:30.19) still stands after 29 years, and no one has come close to breaking it.
For the Javelin throw, Mohd Yazid Imran's record of 73.34m still stands after 28 years.
Yazid wishes it to be broken, saying: "I would have been happy if someone broke the record. That will mean progress. In any sport, progress is important. To see the record being stuck for 25 years is a little sad, to be honest," said the 1995 Chiang Mai SEA Games gold medallist in an interview with The Star in 2020.
References:
1. https://www.thestar.com.my/
2. https://worldathletics.org/
3. https://worldathletics.org/
4. https://worldathletics.org/
5. https://worldathletics.org/
6. https://worldathletics.org/
