ITE College East, Sunday, July 25, 2010 — Sprinter Valerie Pereira carried on her recent good form in the 200 metres when she clocked a time of 25.19 seconds at the Fifth All-Comers track and field meet.

She had set a personal best of 24.86 seconds a week ago at the semi-finals of the Vietnam Open, and followed that up with a 25.18 showing in the final to claim a bronze. Valerie ran at the All-Comers meet in a field of only four runners, and given the lack of competition and the presence of a 1.0 metres per second headwind, this was a good result.

Muhd Amirudin Jamal and Muhd Elfi Mustapa also ran fast enough times in the 100 metres to qualify for the Asian Games in November. The qualifying mark is 10.57.

Amirudin, a gold medalist at the Vietnam Open, ran the century sprint in 10.53 seconds, against a headwind of 1.3 m/s. It was a whisker away from the 10.52 he clocked at the 2008 ASEAN University Games.

Elfi broke his personal best of 10.59 seconds set last year when he finished in 10.56, and that into a headwind of 0.4 m/s as well. Both Amirudin and Elfi were part of the record-breaking 4 x 100 metres relay team at the 2009 South East-Asian Games.

Gary Yeo and Lee Cheng Wei, the two other runners in that squad, were in Elfi’s field of eight today and clocked 10.71 and 10.77 seconds respectively.

Mr Tang Weng Fei, the president of the Singapore Athletic Association, said: “2010 is a very important year for athletics in Singapore with the inaugural Youth Olympic Games taking place here next month. Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed some outstanding results from Singaporean athletes, including Valerie Pereira’s 24.86 second time in the 200m – making her the first Singaporean woman in over 26 years to breach the 25-second barrier – and middle distance runner Zachary Devaraj who recently set two new schools national records in the 800m and 1500m. At today’s meet, we witnessed excellent performances from Amirudin and Elfi in the Men’s 100m. These are exciting times for Singapore athletics.”