Athletics: Last chance to earn Beijing ticket

Robani Hassan (left) and Rayzam Shah Wan Sofian.

THERE is little chance of anyone else joining the three track and field athletes already qualified for the Beijing Olympics but a strong local turnout is still expected for the Malaysian Pre-Olympic Athletic Championships in Bukit Jalil tomorrow.

But hurdlers Robani Hassan and Rayzam Shah Wan Sofian will hope to prove the doubters wrong in what will be their final chance of realising their Olympic ambitions at the two-day meet.

The duo are two of 208 local athletes from 14 states set to compete against 63 athletes from eight invited countries who are using the meet to either prepare their athletes or to try qualify for the Aug 8-24 Olympics.

Singapore lead the way with 20 entries while Taiwan (11), Philippines (nine), Botswana (eight), Brunei (five), Thailand (five), India (four) and Laos (one) have also confirmed their entries.

Malaysian Amateur Athletic Union deputy president Karim Ibrahim, however, was pessimistic about the chances of more athletes joining pole vaulter Roslinda Samsu, walker Yuan Yufang and high jumper Lee Hup Wei in Beijing.
"In truth, only the 110m hurdlers (Robani and Rayzam) have a small chance of qualifying for the Olympics now. I have given up on Noraseela (Khalid). Even if she recovers, there is no way she is going to do 56.50 seconds (to qualify)," said Karim after a press conference last week to announce details of the Bukit Jalil meet at the National Stadium.

Noraseela injured herself while running the 400m hurdles at the first leg of the Asian Grand Prix series in Bangkok on June 23 while 400m runner Zaiful Zainal Abidin also succumbed to injury at the second leg in Korat three days later.

Robani and Rayzam ran all three legs of the Asian GP series, which ended in Hanoi on Monday, but neither came close to the qualifying time of 13.72 seconds.

Rayzam took bronze in Bangkok by clocking his year's best of 13.95s while Robani equalled his season best time of 13.91 in Korat.

In Hanoi, Rayzam finished fourth in 14.08s with Robani just behind in fifth in 14.10 with a strong headwind of 1.6m/s.

M. Vadivellan, Malaysia's third athlete in Hanoi, capped a disappointing series for himself by failing to finish the men's 1,500m.

NST