KUCHING: Much excitement and news have been created in recent days over the sensational Sukma 100m men’s final. In the midst of all the buzz, a chapter in Sarawak sports history ended and hardly anyone at Stadium Sarawak noticed.
After Malacca’s Khairul Jantan blazed to glory and broke Watson Nyambek’s 18-year-old national 100m record, much interest arose over whether the new sprint sensation could also break the national 200m record.
Yesterday, the men’s 110m hurdles took place at 10.15am, less than 30 minutes after Khairul won. There was fairly good local interest in it as the pre-race favourite was Sarawak’s very own Mohd Rizzua Haizad. The 19 yearold Kuching-born is a product of the national sports delivery system.
He blossomed to emerge as the national schools Under-18 champion in the 110m hurdles in 2014 before representing Malaysia in major youth international meets such as the Youth Olympic Games and the World Junior Championships last week.
If there’s ever a case of a naturally gifted athlete, Bala Ditta was it.
He was a throwback to the era of the pure amateur athlete. His talent was discovered late only when the 20 year-old Kelabitborn ventured to join the police force in 1957.
The well-built six footer quickly rose to be the state champion in the discus and shot put, winning the state title in both events from 1958. Then came an encounter with a visiting American coach Tom Rosandich in 1960. And the rest is history.
Tom found to his amazement that Bala could also run, very fast. In an era when athletes retire in their mid twenties, Bala remarkably switched his focus to hurdles under Tom’s guidance at the age of 23. He won the 110m hurdles on his fi rst try at the 1961 Sarawak championships.
In the same year he travelled to compete and beat all comers in Malaya including the reigning SEAP Games champion from Singapore! His time kept improving. On June 21, 1962 he clocked 14.6sec in a meet in Kuala Lumpur. It was half a second better than the best time ever clocked by anyone in Malaya up to that point.
That year he was selected to represent Sarawak in the Asian Games held in Djakarta, Indonesia and the Commonwealth Games in Perth, Australia. Bala went on to be the sole Sarawak athlete selected to join the national contingent representing the newly formed Malaysia for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
He was 27 and retired after becoming Sarawak’s f i rst Olympian. Almost all of Bala’s races were hand-timed.
He made a few comebacks from retirement. In 1971 he finally bid farewell to his international career at the SEAP Games in Kuala Lumpur. He won the silver medal with his best electronic time of 14.72sec at the age of 34. For over half a century no Sarawakian has clocked below 15.0sec in the 110m hurdles except Bala Ditta.
That is until Mohd Rizzua Haizad came along. His time of 14.54sec yesterday finally broke Sarawak’s longest surviving record in track & field or swimming or any other sport for that matter.
(The unedited text is here.)
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