Over the weekend we had our POLITE Games held at Bishan Stadium which was proudly hosted by Republic Poly. It was scorching hot early in the morning and our competitors from various institution gave their best performance despite the threatening weather. There were a total of 6 participating institution namely, Singapore Poly, Ngee Ann Poly, Nanyang Poly, Temasek Poly, Republic Poly and ITE with the largest number of participants coming from Singapore Poly – 60 participants.
Republic poly sent a contingent of mainly track athletes and out of the 37 athletes, only one representative contested in the women triple and long jump – Shireen. She also contributed in the 4 x 100m relay and received 2 silver medals from the jumps, out of the 3 events she participated.
Zaki leading the pack with Khalis fighting for his 3rd position.
Another outstanding performance came from Zaki Sapari of RP. He dominated the 400m and the 400mH coming in first for both events with a time of 50.63s and 54.13s respectively. My biggest surprise was Khalis, who did not train and clocked a reasonable time of 54.01s and managed to fight to a 3rd position in the 400m finals.
Don Ng was also the dark horse in the sprints events. He managed to squeeze to the finals in the 100m and 200m. He ran many races in the 2 days event in POLITE, heats and finals plus the 2 relays.
It was a huge disappointment however when Don did not manage to complete the baton transaction from the 3rd to the 4th leg. Zaki slowed down for Don but he still fumbled and dropped the baton. It was a huge set back for the RP team.
However his efforts was paid off when he anchored the 4 x 400m team and finished 40m ahead of the 2nd team to clinch the gold medal in the long sprints relay. Our 4 runners did really well and fought for the name of RP, with Khalis starting the 1st leg, followed by Zaki who pull the gap away from the other schools and Shanker extending the lead further more, giving Don a big lead to finish the race comfortably.
Habibah leading with Natalie just behind.
RP is also quite lucky to have Natalie and Habibah to help us in the short sprints. I was hoping for some medals from them and indeed, they came in 1st and 2nd for the 100m and the 200m. Therefore I think I made the right decision to put Sok Hong in the 200m, and the 400m to let her have a chance to race in the finals. She did us proud by qualifying to the finals in the 400m.
Photos from: Zaki Facebook , RP office student affairs staff
