SEA Games: Marathon gold 'most satisfying'

Team Singapore ended the five-day track and field competition on Thursday with throwers Zhang Guirong and Du Xianhui clinching silver and bronze respectively in the discus event.

But for all the medals in their two gold, three silver, and three bronze tally, team manager William Wong believes that the marathon gold won by Mok Ying Ren was the most outstanding.

"The marathon was the most satisfying," said Wong, who added that marathon running is a growing hobby among Singaporeans. "It is a tough event and it's a historic gold for us.

"It shows and proves that a Singaporean can be a competitive marathoner in the region."

He also picked 17-year-old Shanti Pereira as the one to shine when the 2015 Games come to Singapore.

He said: "A lot of youngsters have shown in Myanmar that they have the potential to win gold. We will now go back and start working on our targets for the next SEA Games."

Shanti, who was the youngest finalist in the 100m and 200m races, missed out on a bronze medal in both events by a whisker.

On Thursday, at the Wunna Theikdi Stadium, Zhang registered 42.24m in the discus for silver while Du took bronze with 41.02m.

The event was won by Thailand's Subenrat Insaeng with a Games' record of 56.77m.

Du, who said she was throwing 43m in training, lamented: "My throw was poor today as I didn't meet my training standards. I couldn't get my arm up and I'm not happy with my performance."

In the women's 4x400m relay, Singapore's quartet of Shanti, Dipna Lim-Prasad, Wendy Enn and T. Piriyah placed fifth, but set a new national Under-23 mark of 3min 44.80sec. They rewrote their own 3:47.82 mark, which was clocked in July.

ugenec@sph.com.sg

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