Time running out for Zaidatul to upstage Shanti as the Queen of Pace

SPRINTER Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli has entered a small circle of elite athletes who have earned the bragging rights as national record holders following her feat in the Perlis Open recently.

Thanks for stopping the clock at 11.49 seconds in the women’s 100m dash, Zaidatul has consigned G. Shanti’s 31-year-old record into the history books. Like Shereen Samson Vallabouy, Zaidatul belongs to the select few listed in the record books as current national record holders.

There was also another record shattered in Kangar as Nani Sahirah Maryata broke her own national women’s shot putt record (15.22m) with a throw of 15.39m.

Zaidatul ’s exploits were quickly shared online, going viral within minutes after her race, in contrast to Shanti’s record-breaking feat on May 7, 31 years ago, covered mainly by the print media in the pre-Internet days.

I happened to be at the Merdeka Stadium, covering the pre-SEA Games competition-cum-trial ahead of the biennial event in Singapore the following month. I was there as the third-choice reporter, being the understudy to Norbakti Alias and Jamhariah Jaafar who covered the athletics’ beat for Berita Harian.In clocking 11.50s to beat Siti Kimsah Ansarullah (11.68s) and Noraini Harun (12.26s), Shanti shaved off her previous mark set at the semi-finals of the Asian Championship at the same venue on Oct 20, 1991, by a mere 0.01 seconds. A month earlier, Shanti had erased the 11.61s with a 11.51s run in the Malaysian Open.

After swapping her hockey sticks with a pair of spikes in 1987, Shanti, the youngest of 12 siblings from Kuala Kangsar, proved to be adept at running.

Finishing third in the 100m behind Thailand’s Ratjai Sripet and fellow Malaysian Sajaratuldur Hamzah in the 1989 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games, Shanti bagged the 200m gold medal in Manila in 1991 in dramatic fashion. As Lydia de Vega, the Filipinos’ favourite young mother surged up strongly at the finish, Shanti appeared to lunge too early, when in fact she stumbled after her spikes got stuck in the track. But the gold was hers.

Despite her victory, Shanti who played goalkeeper for the women’s hockey team in the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul, was full of admiration for Lydia who continued winning after giving birth.

Little did Shanti realise she would surpass Lydia by grabbing the 100m and 200m double six years later, returning to the track after giving birth to Vinoo Shanaa, born in 1995.

Having missed the Hiroshima Asian Games in 1994 due to an eleventh-hour hamstring injury, Shanti took a break in 1995 after tying the knot with footballer R. Kannan. She made a comeback in Kangar, of all places, in 1996 just in time for her to prepare for the golden assault in Jakarta.

The image of Shanti, running in Lane 5 with her hands flung in the air at the finish line at Senayan Stadium in 1997, remains etched on my mind when I was there at the media centre in Jakarta.

Shanti clocked 11.61s, beating Thailand’s Dokjun Dokjuang and Elma Muros of the Philippines en route to becoming only the fourth Malaysian sprinter to scoop the women’s 100m gold after Carmen Koelmeyer in Bangkok 1959, Cheryl Dorall Bangkok 1967 and Mumtaz Jaffar in Manila 1981.

Now 57 and attached to Maybank Bandar Baru Bangi branch, Shanti can look back at her career with immense pride.

For all the medals won throughout her glittering career including the National Sportswoman of the Year title in 1998, the sprinting mum is proud to produce two daughters – Vinoo Shanaa, a medical doctor in Pangkalan Amo, Serian, Sarawak, while Thevisshana is doing dentistry at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Kannan meanwhile is the manager of the Maybank branch in Subang Jaya.

Without taking anything away from her, Zaidatul’s list of achievements pales in comparison to Shanti.

For now, Zaidatul, or Adik to her colleagues, needs to outpace another Shanti, Singapore’s Veronica Shanti Pereira, the region’s sprint queen, in order to create a lasting legacy!