By Erwin Wong/Red Sports

Writer’s note: On 19 February, the Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) announced that the Panel of Appeal has overturned the disqualification of Temasek Polytechnic in the women’s 4×100 metres relay final. The story has been updated to reflect this.

ITE Simei, Saturday, February 4, 2012 – Nanyang Technological University (NTU)’s Dipna Lim Prasad broke the women’s 400 metres hurdles championship record at the 2011/12 Institute-Varsity-Polytechnic (IVP) Track and Field Championships, when she ran a personal best (PB) time of 64.78 seconds to win the gold medal.

Dipna, the national open, under-23, junior and under-19 record holder in the 100m hurdles, was a class above the rest of the field and finished more than three seconds ahead of National University of Singapore (NUS)’ Goh Chui Ling. Dipna, 20, bettered her previous best of 65.51 clocked at the South-east Asian Junior Championships in June 2007, which gave her the bronze medal.

The previous record was 66.60s set by Ho New Fei in 2006. It was the second of only two championship records in this year’s competition. The first was set last weekend by Singapore Management University’s Dominic Chan in the men’s pole vault.

“I’m quite happy because it’s the first time in four years that I have run in this event. So, I just went in hoping to get a new PB,” said Dipna.

This was Dipna’s third individual gold medal of this year’s competition. Her first came in the 100m hurdles, where her personal best and national record of 14.23 was nearly a full second faster than the championship record of 15.2. Dipna clocked a time of 15.32 seconds to just miss out on the record.

“I strained my hamstring two weeks ago at the SAA Series 1 meet, so I had to run carefully throughout these two weeks,” said Dipna, who will compete in the Asian Indoor Championships in Hangzhou, China, on the 18th and 19th of this month. “I’m leaving on the 16th. I don’t want to worsen my injury, so I had to be more conservative.”

The second-year Sports Science and Management student hopes to take part in the Olympic Games in London later this year, and also to take her 100m hurdles national record to the next level.

“I really hope to go sub-14 seconds. That’s my main goal.”

Besides her three individual gold medals (100m, 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles), Dipna was also in the 4x400m and 4x100m relay teams which finished first and second respectively, and her performance helped NTU towards its first IVP women’s track and field title in 12 years.

“I think our team’s performance was great. Everyone was on Facebook and we had Whatsapp groups cheering each other on and sending each other encouraging messages throughout the whole span of the IVP championships. So I think that’s good,” said Dipna.

“For the relay team members like Valerie (Pereira), Shalom (Danielle See), Balpreet (Kaur), Nikita (Sharda) and myself, we’ve been going for overseas meets since we were 16 or 17, and we know each other since secondary school at the National Inter-School Championships, so we’ve always been a close-knit team. The whole team worked very hard,” she added.

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2011/12 IVP Women’s 400m Hurdles Final result

1. Dipna Lim Prasad, Nanyang Technological University – 1:04.78 seconds (Championship record)
2. Goh Chui Ling, National University of Singapore – 1:08.07
3. Lau Wan Qi Gina, Nanyang Polytechnic – 1:08.25
4. Chong Yi Mei, Singapore Management University – 1:12.82
5. Vania Lim, Singapore Management University – 1:17.72
6. Lee Jing Ting, Ngee Ann Polytechnic – 1:25.33
7. Shalom Danielle See, Nanyang Technological University – 1:28.49
8. Lie Jia Ling Cheryl, National University of Singapore – 1:34.69