Heng Yu Jie of Catholic High stuns heavy favourite Marcus Ng of Victoria School to defend C boys' 3000m title

By REDintern Soh Rui Yong. Photos by Marvin Lowe/Red Sports

Choa Chu Kang Stadium, Friday, April 9, 2010 – Judging by the way Marcus Ng of Victoria School (VS) has been running this year, many would have taken the outcome of the C Division boys' 3000m final as a forgone conclusion. Heng Yu Jie of Catholic High School however showed that this was not the case, as he stuck close to Marcus from the start of the race, before unleashing an amazing 63-second final lap to out-sprint Marcus for the gold medal. Yu Jie clocked a time of 9:59.04 min, more than two seconds clear of Marcus, who finished in 10:01.10.

Prior to this race, Marcus had won every single race he has been in this year, and he put up an unforgettable display at last month's National Schools Cross-Country Championships where he demolished Yu Jie along with the rest of the field to claim the C Divison boys’ cross-country crown.

His winning margin then over Yu Jie, who finished in second place, was a ridiculously large 44 seconds. As such, the pre-race talk among spectators was more about how fast Marcus would go, and whether he would be able to break the championship record of 9:41.35 set by Muthukumar of Saint Patrick's Secondary more than a decade ago in 1999, with his victory being already taken for granted. It did seem that Yu Jie, who won the C Division boys’ 3000m at last year's championships as a fresh Secondary 1 athlete, faced an uphill battle to defend his title.

Thoughts of a fast time however quickly went out the window upon the sound of the gun. Marcus chose to drop behind the leader Zuo Yuchen of Raffles Institution rather than set the pace himself. Yu Jie, in turn, was shadowing Marcus in third place, watching him like a hawk. The race soon resembled a procession of sorts as the competitors seemed content just to follow the runner directly in front of him, with none of the athletes in the field keen to make any moves whatsoever.

Yuchen led the field through the 2000m mark in 7:00min, on course for a 10:30 finishing time, which would have been incredibly slow for Marcus' standard. Perhaps deciding he had waited long enough, Marcus finally moved into the lead and picked up the pace considerably, but a visibly fresh Yu Jie responded immediately, matching Marcus stride for stride.

Marcus continued to wind up the pace in an effort to shake Yu Jie off his shoulder, with his effort seeing him blow the rest of the field away as he and Yu Jie were locked in a one-on-one duel to the finish. Yu Jie however, grimly hung on, not giving Marcus an inch. It was evident that the race was to culminate in a last-lap battle between the two rivals.

As the bell sounded to mark the final lap, Yu Jie made his move at last. He moved swiftly into the lead and caught Marcus off-guard, quickly establishing a 10-metre gap on the cross country champion. As his supporters yelled for a response, Marcus quickened his pace with 300m to go and gradually made up ground on his challenger. Yu Jie's lead was quickly eaten up, and for a moment it seemed that he had made his move too early and was about to suffer yet another defeat by the Victorian champion.

However, with 150m to go, Yu Jie tapped deep into his pool of reserve energy and summoned one last defiant sprint for the line, this time leaving Marcus behind for good. Upon crossing the line, Yu Jie was visibly elated at his successful title defense, while Marcus bent over after finishing the race, exhausted and no doubt disillusioned at his first defeat of the year. Yuchen managed to hold off a hard-charging Joshua Nga of Catholic High for the bronze medal, a well-deserved reward for his front-running efforts early on.

Yu Jie's coach, Mr Alan Koh, later shared, "Yu Jie has very good finishing speed for a long-distance runner, so I told him to hang on to the leaders until the final lap before making any moves. When the pace was slow, I was confident that his sprint finish would allow him to hold off the other athletes in the latter stages of the race."

The two rivals will meet for the final time at the National Schools level this year in the 1500m final on Wednesday. Expect another close and exciting showdown between these two immensely talented young athletes who both have the potential to do Singapore proud at the international level in the years to come!