Prabudass breaks Malaysia's Half-Marathon record at Gold Coast

KUALA LUMPUR, July 7 (Bernama) – Malaysia’s long distance runner, K. Prabudass broke the national Half Marathon record after clocking one hour, seven minutes and 29 seconds at the 41st Gold Coast Marathon, today.

The 29-year-old Negeri Sembilan-born, finished 29th among 4,198 runners in the men’s event while host runner Jack Rayner won the 21km race held at the beautiful Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia with 01:02:30s, according to the tournament’s official website, www.goldcoastmarathon.com.au.

The feat saw the Royal Malaysian Navy personnel erasing the 15-year-old national record of 1:07:59s held by former national runner, M. Arul Thevar since July 4, 2004.

Prabudass now had a good prospect to win the 5,000m event gold medal at the 2019 SEA Games in the Philippines in December.

For the record, the 2017 SEA Games 5,000m silver medallist clocked his personal best of 14:33.10s in the second series of the Nippon Sport Science University’s athletics event in Kenshidai, Japan in May to become the all-time second best Malaysian in the event.

“Feeling good and proud…I was expecting to run my personal best but the weather was not so good this morning, quite heavy rain, but I still managed to keep up my pace and break the record.

“For now, no plans until next event, maybe in September. After this I will be back to track competitions to prepare for the SEA Games, focusing on the 5,000m which is my favourite event.

“Road is different from track, we can’t compare them, but this performance surely gave me some boost to prepare for the SEA Games,” he told Bernama when contacted at Gold Coast.

Meanwhile, in the full marathon (42km), another national runner, Muhaizar Mohamad finished in 35th place after recording 02:26:42s, as former Japanese national record holder, Yuta Shitara emerged victorious by setting a new race record with 2:7:50s, almost one minute faster than previous record set by Kenyan Kenneth Mungara in 2015.

Muhaizar became the first Malaysian to win a SEA Games medal in marathon, after bagging a bronze in the 2017 Kuala Lumpur edition.

-- BERNAMA