For gold and glory

Last week my fellow colleagues and I, together with our school athletes participated in the Limbang Inter Division School Sports Meet. Nine secondary schools around Limbang and Lawas compete for four days in various track and field events. This is my fifth time coming as one of the coaches for our school team SMK Sundar. We came with 53 athletes and five coaches this year. Not a big number compared to other teams especially the schools in Limbang. Money is our big concern everytime we bring our athletes here. Group passport costs Rm200 for 20 applicants, and each van charged us RM400 for our trip to Limbang. This haven't include our foods and lodging while we're there. Money aside, all the hard effort and training for the last two months finally come to that four tiring days for my students.




Training session


Terry, our head coach giving instructions and advice.


Millen, Majorie and Zukri. I'm coach cum photographer. :)

A lot of things happened during the sports meet. Some biased decision occured, one of my student was stripped off his silver medal because of what we coaches believed was human error. He completed the 5000 km run but was later told he was behind by another lap. Pity him. We protested but the decision is final. Luckilly he got another year to try and get his medal. Our athletes achived some encouraging results, and fighting spirits were high among them which makes us coaches really proud.


Mandela for the walk event


Jeffendy who won gold for Under-18 discus, 4th for javelin and 6th for shortput.


Viviene Martha


Mary Ramet


Stanley who was stripped off his silver medal for the 5km event.


Darren

At the end of the day, our atheletes gathered 9 gold, 3 silver and 12 bronze. We were ranked seventh out of nine schools, which is good for a small squad like us. Three of our athletes will represent Limbang division for the coming MSS Sarawak at the end of this month.





We, as the coaches couldn't think of anything better to celebrate their feat on the last night in Limbang by...


Hehe. This takes away all those tired faces. Don't worry my students, we are going to have a big barbecue once we get back to school later.