By Colin Tung/Red Sports
Matthew’s 7.03m effort won him the IVP long jump title but fell 1cm shy of the championship record. (Photo 1 © Colin Tung/Red Sports)
ITE College East (Simei), Saturday, February 2, 2013 — After finishing runner-up the previous Saturday in the men’s triple jump, Matthew Goh earned gold in the long jump with a 7.03-metre effort — the only jump of the day over seven metres — into a 1.0 metre per second headwind.
The national record-holder in the men’s long jump came within one centimeter of the Institute-Varsity-Polytechnic (IVP) Games record set in 1976 by Koh Swee Hua.
The Singapore Management University freshman, a silver medallist in his pet long jump event at last December’s ASEAN University Games (AUG) in Laos, denied Li Chun Xiao a trio of gold medals in the jumps events. The latter, a Nanyang Technological University undergraduate, had added a win in the high jump earlier in the afternoon to the one he obtained over Matthew in the triple jump by a mere two centimetres on Day 1 of the IVP championships.
Matthew and Chun Xiao opened with jumps of 6.75m and 6.69m respectively to lead the field of competitors. Each then went on to chalk up their best efforts of the day on their last attempts with Chun Xiao posting a mark of 6.88m.
After winning silver at the AUG last December, Matthew had explained the relatively shorter distances on his opening jumps: “Every competitor is guaranteed three jumps, before the top eight [competitors] are granted another three.
“Every long jumper struggles to balance between aggression and safety during the first three jumps. If you fault [them], you are out of the competition, no more chances. Being too aggressive will likely result in a ‘fault’ while being too safe will result in a less-than-desired jump distance. This was the difficulty I faced during the competition with my first three jumps being too safe.”
The IVP long jump win comes almost a year after he finished National Service last February. It was also his sixth long jump competition since his Operationally-Ready Date (ORD).
In an email interview after the AUG on his aims thereafter, Matthew said: “Singapore has not won a medal in the jumps at the Southeast Asian Games in a long time. Perhaps I would be the one to break that spell come 2013 or 2015.”
And if Matthew can once again find the form that brought him to set the national record of 7.62m in 2009, it would be hard to bet against it.
Long Jump Results
1st Matthew Goh Yujie (#314, Singapore Management University) — 7.03m
2nd Li Chun Xiao (#111, Nanyang Technological University) — 6.88m
3rd Khan Meng Linn (#293, Singapore Institute of Management) — 6.83m
4th Lee Xi Hao (#234, Nanyang Polytechnic) — 6.59m
5th Chong Ming Xun (#166, National University of Singapore) — 6.45m
6th Tan Jian Hui (#381, Temasek Polytechnic) — 6.29m
7th Daryl Tan (#167, National University of Singapore) — 6.22m
[…] the long jump, he said, “Back then, when I spoke to him (Matthew, who was still competing and won with a jump of 7.03m), I had not broken seven metres yet. He’s the reason that I believe that all these is […]