S'pore's teens strike gold twice on first day of SEA Youth Athletics

ILAGAN CITY (PHILIPPINES) — Singapore's top youth athletes strcuk gold twice on the first day of the 12th South-east Asian (SEA) Youth Athletics Championships in Ilagan City in the Philippines on Monday (March 28).

Long jumper Tia Rozario leapt her way to the top of the podium with her 5.85m effort in the Girls Long Jump; while Wei Guan Chong was steady from start to finish, as he won the Boys 100m hurdles (0.914m) in 14.33sec.

Singapore also pocketed silvers on the first day of competition through Thiruben Thanarajan, Syed Hussain Aljunied and Jasmin Phua. 

Racing in only his second competitive outing for Singapore, 17-year-old Thiruben clocked a new personal best (PB) time of 1min 57.07sec in the Boys' 800m, as he finished behind Indonesia’s Wempy Pelamonia (1:55.72). Thirubnen's time was an improvement on his previous personal best of 1:57.62.

“The race went as I planned it to…I wanted to go out hard right from the start, but unfortunately, the Indonesian runner finished strongly and he managed to overtake me at the end,” said the National Junior College student.

Distance runner Syed Hussain Aljunied also secured a silver and set a new personal best in the Boys 3,000m. He clocked 9min 10.98sec.

Meanwhile, Jasmin Phua also finished second when she hurled 35.77m in the Girls' 1kg discus.

Completing Singapore's total haul on the first day of the annual championships was Jonathan Low who took bronze in the Boys discus with his effort of 41.91m.