Rayzam hurdles his way to Singapore SEA Games

National hurdler Rayzam Shah Wan Sofian (right) racing at the 2011 Indonesia SEA Games. - Filepic

KUALA LUMPUR: Hurdler Rayzam Shah Wan Sofian has beaten his own qualifying mark to seal a place in the Singapore SEA Games in June.

The Sabahan clocked the season’s best time of 13.98 in the men’s 110m hurdles en route to winning bronze in the Australian Tour final in Sydney on Sunday.

His efforts surpassed his silver medal effort of 14.00 set at the 2013 Myanmar SEA Games.
The 27-year-old Rayzam, who has a personal best of 13.86, is happy to have qualified for the biennial Games but admitted that it would be tough to win the gold in Singapore.

“Thailand’s Jamras (Rittidet) will be the favourite as he has a personal best of 13.72 (which he set in Myanmar to break the SEA Games record).

“I’ll continue training and competing to improve on my time,” said Rayzam, the 2007 Korat SEA Games gold medallist.

SEA Games gold medallist Nauraj Singh Randhawa cleared 2.20m in the men’s high jump to finish fourth in Sydney.

The lanky Johor athlete had qualified for the SEA Games after a personal best of 2.22m in the Canberra Classics last month.

Triple jumper Mohd Hakimi Ismail failed to beat his own mark to qualify for the SEA Games. He managed 16.04m in Sydney but it was way off his national record of 16.44m set in the Myanmar Games.

Meanwhile, Izzuddin Yahaya of Perlis is the first male sprinter to have qualified for the SEA Games – clocking 10.48 in the men’s 100m final at the Terengganu Open last week to surpass the qualifying mark of 10.51.

So far, 12 athletes – seven male and five women – have surpassed the qualifying mark.
The others include 400m runner Arif Zulhilmi Alet, Mohd Ashraf Saipu Rahmat (high jump), Iskandar Alwi (pole vault) and Mohd Irfan Shamsuddin (discus) for men and Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli (100m), Noor Amira Nafiah (long jump), Yap Jeng Tzan (discus), Grace Wong and Casier Renee Kelly Lee (hammer) for women.


 THE STAR