Choa Chu Kang Stadium, Monday, April 18, 2011 — 17 year old Sean Lim became the first athlete in 27 years to break a national record at the National Inter-School Track and Field championships, when he cleared a height of 4.80 metres en route to winning gold in the Boys’ A Division Pole Vault.
The previous record had stood at 4.66m, set by Mok Hay Foo in May 1993. Sean’s personal best, and the national junior record, was 4.61m, cleared at the 2009 Singapore Junior Athletic Championships.
Since then, the Hwa Chong Institution student has gone on to achieve success at the regional youth level. Sean was the bronze medallist at the inaugural Asian Youth Games that same year, and won the gold at the ASEAN Schools Games in 2010. For that, he was named the Best Schoolboy athlete for Track and Field at the 40th National Colours Award presentation.
Sean’s best clearance in 2010 was 4.50m, and he cleared that height at last month’s Singapore Junior Athletic Championships to meet the qualifying mark for November’s South-East Asian Games. With that out of the way, Sean went on to break the 18-year-old national mark with clearances of 4.69m and then 4.80m at the schools meet yesterday.
This new mark, pending ratification by the Singapore Athletic Association, is a new national, national junior, national under-19, schools national and inter-school championship record.
The last athlete to break a national record at the Inter-School meet was Prema Govindan, in 1984. Representing Ang Mo Kio Secondary School, she set national marks of 24.7 and 24.6 seconds in the Girls’ A Division 200 metres.
HCI success at Track and Field has been awesome.
HCI has won the B Div Boys title since 1983, except for 1990 when RI won it.
And HCI has won the C Div Boys title since 1979, except for 1981, 1992 and 2000 when VS won it.
Total dominance!