Ranau’s Koding among athletes to watch at students’ meet

Published on: Friday, July 05, 1968

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DAILY EXPRESS (Friday, July 5, 1968) - KOTA KINABALU, July 4 - With the Olympic style opening ceremony of the Sabah Sports History’s first State Students meet scheduled at the Turf Club padang Friday morning (today), the Sleepy Valley of the Gaya College Hostels have sprung into life since the College closed for the College’s holidays with the arrival of boys and girls from five corners of the State this morning and afternoon.

With the West Coast team spear headed by Malaysia SP&DT champion Mary Wong and including Borneo Games “Double Champion” Maria Yusof expected to dominate the proceedings, a classical clash is assured by the strong boys coming into the traditional event of the discuss throw in which Sandakan’s Kevin Sin has hopes of becoming the current prototype of the ancient Greeks.

If the lads miss on the record here, they are sure to do so in the 12lb shot putt as Mark Koding hailing from the foothills of Kinabalu Mountain is also built on “Body Beautiful” lines and Mark and Kevin’s clash is sure to rival the foot-racing feats in which EX’s pride Florence Soon will be looking for her own sweet revenge of the surprise beating she got from Tati Giloh of Ranau.

Ranau has more runners of repute to stake their claims and Dilbagh Singh Sandhu, the West Coast all rounder who has been busy with football recently will have tough time to subdue to opposition lined up from other parts of the country.

With Weston born Mustapha expected to set the pace for Sabah Quarter-mile King Gaus Payak of Sandakan, the distance races are likely to be like the Phar Lap of the Turf and Beaufort born Musa should cake-walk with the 3,000m. Classic which the writer understands becomes the 3,000m steeple chase when the athletes move over to Alor Star for the National Scholastic show.

And while commenting on distance races, it may not be out of place to record that the Malaysian School records are dominated by Singapore athletes and the Malaysian schoolboys have not come so close to these as schoolboys like Mirza Namazie the international – he was second to Dilbagh in the SEAP show, 3,000MST, and third to Subra in the 5,000m.

And the Glenville sisters of British Armymen have left marks which are out of this class.

Our boys and girls will need to avoid from worrying about these and set the pace for our own new records as our jumpers like Thomas Willie and school girls Mary Wong, Mary Nair, Irene Ng have already proved that our track development is next to none in Malaysia.