Khairul breaks 200m Sukma record again but falls short of national mark

KUCHING: It is not a perfect ending but sprinter Khairul Hafiz Jantan can still walk tall.

The 18-year-old Khairul blazed the track with a time of 21:03 seconds in the 200m at the Malaysia Games (Sukma) in Petra Jaya on Friday but it was not good enough to surpass the 48-year-old national record of 20.92.

With that, Tan Sri Dr. M. Jegathesan’s national record stands. He had set the old mark at the semi-finals of the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games.

Khairul can still afford to smile though. His time in 200m on Friday bettered the Sukma record of 21.14, which he had set in the heats just a day ago.

It fell short though of his personal best of 21.00, which he did at the Asian Junior Championships in Ho Chi Minh last month.

Indeed, it has been an amazing Sukma for Khairul.

On Wednesday, Khairul broke the 100m national record by clocking 10.18 in the blue riband event. The old mark of 10.30 was set by Sarawak’s Watson Nyambek at the pre-Commonwealth Games in 1998 – the year Khairul was born.

He also led the Malacca quartet for a Sukma record in the 4x100m on Thursday.