By Romaine Soh/Red Sports
A dominant Karthic has no one near him as he clears a hurdle. He led from start to finish to win the 3,000m steeplechase final in a time of 10:16, 12 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor. (Photo © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Chua Chu Kang Stadium, Friday, April 12, 2013 — Karthic Harish Ragupathy of Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) capped off a red-letter season when he won the A Division 3,000 metres steeplechase final at the 54th National Schools Track and Field Championships. In doing so, he successfully defended his three A Division titles in cross-country, the 5,000m and the 3,000m steeplechase, repeating the hat-trick he first accomplished last year.
The last person who has managed this feat of having a treble of individual titles under his belt was Soh Rui Yong, then of Raffles Institution (RI), back in 2009.
Karthic won the 3,000m steeplechase in a time of 10 minutes 16 seconds, 12 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor, Bryan Yong of RI, who crossed the line in 10:28.
Jonathan Tan, also of RI, rounded off the podium, clocking a timing of 10:42.
Karthic was unopposed, leading from the start and maintaining it all the way to the end.
Jonathan and Bryan ran together for the first half of the race, until Bryan decided to up the tempo to close the 100m gap that Karthic had established by then. Jonathan, who could not keep up with the new pace, was then left to his own devices for the rest of the race.
By the last lap, Bryan had halved the gap between him and Karthic to 50m. Karthic was tiring from the fast pace he had set earlier in order to run away from the field, and was now simply gunning for the gold instead of the record.
It was however too late for Bryan, as Karthic crossed the line 12 seconds ahead of him.
Joel Ng of Hwa Chong Institution, who was running in fourth place at the penultimate round, increased his pace at the last lap in an attempt to catch up with Jonathan, even managing to clear the whole water obstacle. However, Jonathan managed to keep just ahead of Joel, finishing nine seconds ahead of him to earn the bronze.
A Boys 3,000m Steeplechase Results
1st Karthic Harish Ragupathy (Hwa Chong Institution, #275) — 10:16.49
2nd Yong Ren Wei Bryan (Raffles Institution, #157) — 10:28.30
3rd Tan Hoe En Jonathan (Raffles Institution, #149) — 10:42.61
4th Joel Ng Jo Wei (Hwa Chong Institution, #274) — 10:51.21
5th Tan Jian Da (Anglo Chinese Junior College, #255) — 11:07.50
6th Lim Jia De (Raffles Institution, #137) — 11:38.50
7th Tang Chung Theng (Victoria Junior College, #228) — 11:42.94
8th Tan Ching Keng Justin (Victoria Junior College, #226) — 11:43.68
9th Niresh Ranjakunalan (Anglo Chinese Sch (Independent), #71) — 11:44.74
10th P S Pandiyan (Victoria Junior College, #221) — 11:44.86
11th Stanley Goh Qi Ming (Catholic Junior College, #96) — 12:01.17
12th Tan Wen Da (National Junior College, #114) — 12:04.24
13th Huang Ziwei (Hwa Chong Institution, #273) — 12:09.19
14th Michael Lee Dao Kang (National Junior College, #111) — 12:17.22
15th Goh Wei Sheng (Anglo Chinese Junior College, #242) — 12:39.98
16th Ryan Chua Wei Lun (St Andrews Junior College, #176) — 13:46.65
For more photos, go to: Red Sports Images
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