Shahrir Mohd Anuar of Sports School breaks B Division boys’ 100m record

Story by REDintern Colin Tung

Jubilation for Shahrir Mohd Anuar at the finish line. (Photo 1 © Marvin Lowe/Red Sports)

Choa Chu Kang Stadium, Thursday, April 23, 2009 – There was drama galore on the final day of competition at the 50th Inter-School Track-and-Field Championships.

As the curtains drew on the stage that was the Choa Chu Kang Stadium, Shahrir Mohd Anuar of the Singapore Sports School walked off with a new record of 10.90s in the B Division boys’ 100m race. It was the only sub-11 second time recorded at the championships this year and it erased the previous record of 10.97s set by Aaron Huang of St. Andrew’s Secondary in 1997.

He also deposed the 2008 100m B Division boys’ champion Aaron Foo of Seng Kang Secondary, who played runner-up in a time of 11.11s. In third was Kairyll Amri Bin Tumadi of Temasek Secondary in a time of 11.15s.

Almost 1.5 hours after his record-setting exploits, Shahrir Anuar returned to the track in a bid to earn the Sports School a trio of gold medals in the 4X100m relays as the anchor-runner of the team.

At the first change-over, Shahrir could only watch in anxiety as his team-mates Luqman Zamrot and Vivek Anand almost botched the baton pass. Fortunately, they reacted quickly to salvage the situation. But Sports School now had to play catch up.

By the time Shahrir got the baton, he was running fourth with Aaron Foo in the lead. But Shahrir, with his legs already warmed up, summoned his record-setting form as he rapidly reeled in Aaron.

However, it was not enough as Aaron Foo crossed the finish first to give Seng Kang a memorable victory in a time of 43.27s. Once again, Seng Kang proved to be the bogey team for Sports School, after they had also pipped the Sports School in the 4X200m at the recent SPH Schools’ Relays. Sports School clocked 43.61s while St. Joseph’s Institution were third with a time of 43.91s.

Shahrir shared about his 4X100m effort.

“Slowly, I caught up. As I started to gain confidence about overtaking him (Aaron Foo), the race ended. The finish line came up too soon.”

Asked about what he thought when he got the baton in the lead, Aaron said: “My thought was just to run as fast as possible away from Shahrir.”

“I knew it was a good opportunity to win and I am really happy we did,” he added, in reference to the first baton exchange where the Sports School messed up.

The Sports School C Division girls’ 4X100m team also made a mistake which led to their disqualification even thought they had crossed the finish line first in a time of 50.78s.

Nanyang Girls’ High were later promoted to first place with a time of 52.02s with Cedar Girls’ Secondary runner-up in 53.04s. In third was Raffles Girls’ School in a time of 53.51s as the Sports School were left to rue what might have been a quartet of 4X100m wins.