Contributed by Mark Tan

Bukit Gombak Stadium, Sunday, June 7, 2009 - Nine-year-old Wings Athletics Club (WAC) upstaged Swift Athletes Association, Singapore’s oldest athletics club with 62 years of history, in the fiercely contested blue-riband 100m men’s race at the Swift Track-and-Field Championships held over the weekend of June 6 and June 7.

In the 100m men’s final in which Wings Athletics Club provided five of the eight finalists, it was Wings’ Lee Cheng Wei who took top spot in a time of 10.85s. Rounding off the top-three were clubmates Muhd Elfi and U.K. Shyam, the national record-holder, in times of 10.88s and 10.89s respectively.

Gary Yeo and Lance Tan, also of Wings, finished in fifth and sixth positions in times of 11.00s and 11.19s respectively.

The latter’s achievement was even more commendable after his earlier 50.67s run that saw him finish runner-up in the 400m final to clubmate Kenneth Khoo as Wings Athletics Club took both the 100m and 400m races.

The lone representative from Swift in the 100m, Shameer Ayub, did not show up for the final after qualifying eighth-fastest from the heats.

In the women’s category, Asmah Hanim of Wings finished second runner-up to national runners Amanda Choo, also the national record-holder, and Ann Siao Mei who were both representing Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Asmah’s time was 12.67s to Amanda’s and Siao Mei’s times of 12.49s and 12.60s respectively.

On the field, Scott Wong and Lee Yue Jer added further triumphs for Wings in the men’s open discus and javelin events with distances of 41.27m and 52.02m respectively.

Ending the meet on a resoundingly successful note, Wings won the 4X100m men’s open event in a time of 41.98s over Swift who finished runners-up in 42.90s.