Two legends from Perak remembered with great affection

FOR decades, Shaharudin Jaffar and Chung Kum Weng had faded into virtual oblivion, detached from the vagaries of life in Malaysian sports.

But in death, the two Perak-born former Malaysian athletes from the same era were honoured and remembered with great affection.

Kum Heng who passed away at the age of 90 on Feb 11, was given a poignant farewell by the community in Cardiff, the place he called home for more than six decades.

The Ipoh-born weightlifter quit his job as a temporary clerk at the Supreme Court in 1960 to settle down in Cardiff by first working at a restaurant before becoming a bus driver.

He fell in love with Cardiff after winning the silver medal in the featherweight category at the 1958 British Empire Games, now known as the Commonwealth Games.

Just a month earlier, he was selected for the Tokyo Asian Games but had to withdraw due to an injured wrist.

Despite being based in Wales, Kum Weng continued to compete internationally for Malaya, competing at the Rome Olympics in 1960 and the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 where he finished in 11th and 10th place respectively. Tokyo was special for Kum Weng because he bettered the Commonwealth Games record by lifting a combined total of 335kg.

By the time he was eligible to represent Wales in a major multisports Games, he made up for lost time by winning the gold at the Commonwealth Games in Kingston in 1966, lifting 337kg.

Kum Weng therefore enjoyed a rare distinction of having represented two different nations in the weightlifting World Championship – for Malaya in Vienna 1959 and for Britain in Teheran, Iran, in 1965 and Ohio, the United States in 1970.

Kum Weng’s demise was only picked up by the Malaysian media after a heartwarming video footage of his death went viral, with his friends reportedly describing him as a humble and friendly person who would ride his bike all the time through the area with his little black dog.

For Shaharudin, who passed away at the age of 84 on March 18, a bike that was given to him as a gift by his sister changed the course of his life.

Already a district football player for Manjung who was equally active in athletics, Shaharudin wanted to pursue a sporting career in either field. But an ankle injury put paid to his dreams.

“The present from Aminah changed my life. I used it to cycle to school (Anglo Chinese School Sitiawan),” Shaharudin told this writer in an interview in 1993.

Shaharudin went on to become the first cyclist to win the gold at the SEAP Games by delivering the 800m title before the home crowd at Merdeka Stadium in 1965.

A government servant who served at the Statistics Department, the Welfare Department and finally the Youth and Sports Ministry, Shaharudin devoted his life to cycling.

At every district he was attached to, Shaharudin would voluntarily work to keep the sport alive.

He founded the Kedah Cycling Association in 1966, eventually producing the likes of Fazin Saad or known in the circle as A.S Fadzil, Zainon Osman, Jamil Ishak and Omar Saad, who went on to represent the country in various international competitions.

He revived the Melaka association and helped to establish the Johor association so that talented cyclists from the state, such as Daud Ibrahim, Kamarden Ali, Fazil Ibrahim, Sulaiman Anang and Jasmi Baba, were taken care of.

Shaharudin also engineered a revival of the sport at Negri Sembilan and Pahang, by paving the way for journalist M. T. Lingam and politician Lim Ah Lek (later Tan Sri) to head the respective associations.

Without any financial assistance from the government as the National Sports Council (NSC) were only activated in the early 1980s, Shaharudin resorted to pawning his wife Hasmah Ibrahim’s jewellery to finance training and logistics.

“On a few occasions I accompanied Shaharudin to the pawn shop at Jalan Pudu,” recalled former journalist and a close family friend, M. Selvanaban.

“He was a gem of a guy.”

Hasmah disclosed to this writer at the Shah Alam cemetery that Shaharudin had already prepared his green baju Melayu to celebrate their 58th wedding anniversary, the same day his remains were laid to rest.

We bid farewell to the departed souls in their journey to eternity.