Story by REDintern Iman Hashim. Photos by Les Tan/Red Sports
Travis Tan (RI #32) finishing the 5km race in a time of 18min 47sec in the U15 category. (Photo 1 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Bedok Reservoir Park, Saturday, February 6, 2016 — Travis Tan Gene of Raffles Institution (RI) clocked 18 minutes 47 seconds over 5km to finish in first place in the Under-15 boys category at the 65th Singapore Athletics Cross Country Championships.
This event is usually seen as a tune-up to the National Inter-School Cross Country Championship for school athletes.
Travis, a secondary two student at RI, finished in 11th place in the C Division at the 2015 national schools cross country.
In comparison to the winners of the other categories in this championship, Travis had a slow start. He started in the middle of the pack, and when the runners started bunching out, he found himself around 50 to 100 metres behind the leader. It was only as the race progressed that he started to increase his pace and inch his way steadily to the front of the pack.
He edged out Muhammad of Victoria School who finished just six seconds behind in second place.
Revealing his race strategy, Travis said, “I have never been a fast starter. So I just planned to start at a reasonable pace and slowly pick it up midway through the race.”
Travis will now look to build on this win at the Wings Cross Country Championship to be held on Saturday, February 20. This upcoming championship will act as a good gauge for the athletes competing in the national schools cross country as the running route and distances will be similar.
On his chances of replicating this success during the season ahead which will include both the national schools cross country and track and field, Travis said, “I don’t know, I cannot be too confident but I guess having some confidence would be good.”
Apart from the National Inter-School Cross Country Championships on March 23, Travis will likely take part in the 3000m event at the National Inter-School Track and Field Championships which is slated for April this year.
U15 Boys – 5km (Top 10)
1st Travis Tan Gene (#32, Raffles Institution) — 18:47
2nd Muhammad (#44, Victoria School) — 18:53
3rd Tay Wei Teck Sean (#35, Raffles Institution) — 19:16
4th Joshua Rajendran (#57, Hwa Chong Institution) — 19:28
5th Ke-Gan Yeo (#76, Maris Stella High School) — 19:31
6th Yeo Zhi Yan (#56, Hwa Chong Institution) — 19:32
7th Ethan Tan Hong Han (#58, Hwa Chong Institution) — 19:37
8th Russell Lee (#45, Victoria School) — 19:40
9th Brandon Norton (#42, Singapore Sports School) — 19:42
10th Ben Callon (#85, Unattached) — 19:42
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