Soh plans special Golden Jubilee gift

SINGAPORE — Distance runner Soh Rui Yong remembers the loud cheers and whistles that greeted him at the Kallang Practice Track on the rainy morning of June 7, as he stormed past Thailand’s Srisung Boonthung in a thrilling final sprint to the finish to claim gold in the SEA Games men’s marathon.

The 23-year-old hopes to give his fellow Singaporeans more to cheer about this National Day, as he attempts to break the 10,000m national record at the Portland 10,000m this weekend.

The Portland event at Lewis & Clark College on Aug 9 (Aug 10, Singapore time) will be Soh’s first competitive race since the SEA Games, and he will be gunning to better his previous national mark of 31min 15.95sec clocked at the Portland Track Festival last year.

“This 10,000m race was a last-minute thing. I had some down time after the SEA Games with no running for two weeks after it, and I just got back to proper training three weeks ago,” said Soh in a phone interview from Oregon, where he is currently pursuing a business degree at the University of Oregon.

“My fitness is still there and it’s something I want to try. Whenever I race, I want to do something special. The race happens to fall on (Singapore’s) National Day and what better way to pay tribute to my country than to break my own national record on National Day. This will give me added motivation to run fast.”

Just two months ago, Soh made a dream debut at the SEA Games, winning gold in 2hr 34min 56sec to successfully defend the title won by Singapore’s Mok Ying Ren at the 2013 Games in Myanmar. Since then, Soh has set his sights on becoming the first Singaporean to qualify for the Olympic Games. He set a personal-best time of 2:26:01 in his first marathon race at last December’s California International Marathon and is considering pursing his masters degree in Oregon, so he can study and train to make the 2:17 qualifying time for next year’s Games in Rio de Janeiro.

And his Olympic bid was handed a boost last week, with travel consultant Flight Centre Active Travel SG, which has offices in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore, coming on board as a sponsor. The one-year, in-kind sponsorship will see the company assisting with travel and accommodation costs for his races in the United States and other countries, including the London Marathon next April, when he will attempt to meet the Olympic qualifying mark.

“Previously, I had to do everything myself — book air tickets and hotels, and settle race registration,” said Soh, who also aims to break M Rameshon’s 20-year-old national marathon record (2:24:22) at the Philadelphia or Gold Coast Marathons.

“It’s definitely encouraging to be able to get this sponsorship,” he said, adding that the London marathon gets booked up quickly and he might not have been able to secure a spot without a sponsor.

“In Singapore, our sports-business side is a little underdeveloped, while countries like Australia and United Kingdom recognise that if (companies) help athletes improve, the athletes will get the companies’ names out. It’s nice that they made the first move to contact me after the SEA Games and now, I can work on raising my performance without having to worry about other things.”