Sarawak set to outmuscle rivals in MSSM title bid

Ngu Ing Biao

Roland Manggie

Wong Yu Kiong

Grace Wong

KUCHING: Throwers will be the ‘game changer’ in Sarawak’s arsenal to capture its 20th overall title at the 58th MSSM inter-state schools championships to be held in Terengganu from May 3-7.

Ninety athletes will represent the state in the annual national meet which Sarawak have won an impressive 19 out of the last 23 times (1993-2015), including the last six years.

The state team’s perennial strength has been in the shot put, discus, javelin and hammer events.

Since 2010, half of the gold medal tally are contributed by throwers.

Last year, Sarawak bagged a total of 19 to beat runner-up Sabah’s 10-gold tally in Melaka. 12 of those 19 gold medals were won in throwing events.

Leading the charge this year is 16-year-old Grace Wong who bagged three golds and the Best Girl Athlete title at last year’s championships.

‘Amazing’ Grace has won one or more gold medals at the MSSM Meet every year since she first represented Sarawak as a Primary 4 student in 2010. In most years, she competed against athletes two or three years older. It is no different this time. This is her first year in the U-18 age group.

But the Sarikei-born, who was a bronze medallist in the hammer at the 2015 SEA Games in Singapore, will start as the heavy favourite to win the shot put, discus and hammer.

While no other athlete is expected to match Grace’s singular prowess, the boys are actually tipped to win more throwing events than their female teammates.

Sarawak stands a good chance of sweeping all four throw events for boy’s U-18 via Sim Quan Ying (shot put), Ngu Ing Biao (discus), Johnny Ling (hammer) and Roland Manggie (javelin).

These four, all U-15 champions in previous MSSM meets, have already registered brilliant performances this year.

Ing Biao and Roland are both in their first year in the U-18 competition.

But their best distances of 49.55m and 53.38m so far this year have already surpassed last year’s MSSM winning distances of 46.90 and 52.81m respectively.

Meanwhile, Quan Ying’s best distance of 16.29m earlier this month is also further than the 2015 MSSM winner’s putt of 15.40m.

Perhaps the most remarkable is Johnny.

The 2014 MSSM U-15 discus champion switched to the hammer event only last year. He has since improved from 41.64 to 60.81m in just 12 months.

The winning distance at last year’s MSSM Meet was 57.54m.

Three other younger boys have shown excellent potential to end up on top of the podium in Terengganu.

Discus thrower Lim How Sieng and shot putter Voon Wu Jung are competing in the U-15 category.

How Sieng’s best of 53.76m this year compares favourably with the 2015 MSSM winner’s 50.53m.

Wu Jung’s best put of 16.10m is just 9cm short of the MSSM record.

Wong Yu Kiong is the youngest among the throwers who are firm gold medal prospects. At the state schools meet in early April, he threw 14.29m in the boy’s U-12 shot put.

This is over 2m further than last year’s MSSM gold medal winning distance of 12.21m. The state athletes have been undergoing centralised training in Bintangor since April 12. The state contingent will leave for Terengganu tomorrow (May 1).

 

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