National Sports Council Stadium, Bukit Jalil, Malaysia, July 9-10, 2011 – The 60-strong Singapore contingent won nine golds, eight silvers and 13 bronze medals at the 19th Under-14 and 15 International Little Athletics Championships.

Athletes from the Malaysian Schools Sports Council (MSSM), Western Australia Little Athletics Association (WALAA) and the Singapore Schools Sports Council (SSSC) take part in this annual meet, which Malaysia and Singapore take turns to host.

Singapore Sports School’s Veronica Shanti Pereira, 14, who has set the track alight with sterling times since 2009, equaled Balpreet Kaur’s national under-17 100 metres record of 12.39 seconds en route to winning the gold medal in the girls’ Under-15 category. Veronica finished with a handy 0.43-second advantage over silver medalist Mahafizatul Bt Abdul Manaf (MSSM), but failed to break Balpreet’s 2005 championship record of 12.30 sec.

Veronica holds the national under-15 record in the 200m, which she set in 2009 even before her 13th birthday. She edged close to her sister Valerie’s under-17 record of 25.14s with her time of 25.20s at the ASEAN Schools Games earlier this month, and now has her name in the under-17 record books as co-holder of the 100m mark, pending ratification by the Singapore Athletic Association.

Zubin Percy Muncherji won a gold and silver medal each as he continued his strong performances this year. The 15-year-old Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road) student finished first in his pet event, the 400 metres, in a time of 50.30 sec. Zubin became the first Secondary Three student locally to run the 400 metres in less than 50 seconds when he clocked a time of 49.89 sec in the ASEAN Schools Games on his way to a bronze medal.

Zubin also won a silver medal in the 200m, clocking a personal best of 23.06 sec. He had switched from the sprints to the 400m just this year.

Lynette Lim improved her personal best as well in the triple jump and won the gold in the Under-14 category. The standout triple jumper from Cedar Girls’ Secondary School, who won the C Division gold by 67 centimetres at April’s National Inter-School meet, recorded a 11.16m on her second jump to better her PB of 11.07m set at that meet.

Victoria School’s Calvin Quek, who finished first in the Under-14 200m hurdles a year ago, kept up his winning run when he won in the Under-15 category, clocking a time of 25.34 seconds. Heng Yu Jie recorded a strong victory in the Under-15 1500m and recorded a PB to boot. The Catholic High School student clocked 4 minutes 18.90 seconds to clinch the gold medal by 2.1 seconds.

Relay teams contributed the other four gold medals. The girls’ Under-15 4x100m team led the way with a record-setting performance of 48.39 sec, breaking the championship record of 49.58 set by MSSM in 2006. They also clinched the 4x400m gold in 4:10.00s. The girls’ Under-14 4x100m (51.19 sec) and boys’ Under-15 4x400m (3:28.73s) teams also finished first in their respective fields.

The SSSC named Veronica, Zubin, Lynette and Kendrick Sinatra Hardy as their champion athletes of the Girls’ Under-15, Boys’ Under-15, Girls’ Under-14 and Boys’ Under-14 categories respectively. Kendrick, a Hwa Chong Institution student, was SSSC’s best performing athlete in that category with his silver medal win in the shot put.

Results
19th SSSC-MSSM-WALAA International Little Athletics Championships Day 1 Results
19th SSSC-MSSM-WALAA International Little Athletics Championships Day 2 Results