A Division 400m Hurdles: Timothee Yap of HCI breaks record twice to win gold

10 May 2011

Choa Chu Kang Stadium, Monday, April 25, 2011 — Timothee Yap of Hwa Chong Institution set a new championship record of 54.80 seconds to win gold in the A Division 400m Hurdles at the 52nd National Schools Track and Field Championships.

Timothee broke his own record of 55.19s set earlier in the heats. Syed Abdul Malik Aljunied of Raffles Junior College still holds the hand-timed record of 54.6s set in 1986.

“I followed my race plan to start fast,” said Timothee after the race. “I wanted to cut the Lane 5 runner by the second hurdle, then cut the Lane 6 runner by the fourth hurdle.”

Timothee’s timing might have even beaten the national junior record of 54.66s if not for a clipped hurdle.

“At the second last hurdle, I tripped a bit. If not, junior record,” rued Timothee, whose aim is to qualify for the Palembang South East Asian Games at the end of this year. He will get the chance to do so at the next All-Comers meet or the SEA Games trial set for May 8th. The SEA games qualifying mark is 54.15.

Timothee burst into the hurdling scene last year when he set the B Division electronically-timed record of 56.48s at the inter-schools meet. The height of the hurdles in the B Division is 0.840m, and 0.914m in the A Division.

He started this year off with a 55.51s run over the 0.840m hurdles at the Singapore Athletic Association series 2 meet in February, and then registered the two record-breaking runs here at the schools meet. Raffles Institution’s Melvyn Koe had been the leading local 400m hurdler at 55.32 before this meet.

Timothee’s current attention though is to help his Hwa Chong team do well in the schools’ championships.

“At the 200m mark, I yelled ‘Go, Samuel!’ so that we would have a 1-2 Hwa Chong finish,” added Timothee.

Samuel Tay, his teammate, eventually finished second in 57.69s. This helped Hwa Chong to carry a hefty 30-point lead over Raffles Institution in the A Division Boys team title race, going into the final day of competition on Wednesday, April 27th.

Hwa Chong are the favourites to maintain this lead and even build on it. Samuel Lim and Tan Wei Jie, the top two local high jumpers this year, feature in the high jump final. In the 100m and 1500m final, Hwa Chong will have three representatives while RI only have one, in each event.

This should give Hwa Chong an unassailable lead going into the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, thereby handing them their first Boys’ A Division title since 2007.

Timothee Yap of Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) clears the last hurdle on his way to victory in the A Division Boys 400m hurdles. Timothee’s championship record breaking performance paved the way for a HCI one-two finish with teammate Samuel Tay coming in second.