by Brett Larner
Singaporean medical student and half-marathon national record holder Mok Ying Ren travelled to Japan this weekend to run in the May 28 Tokai University Time Trials meet in Kanagawa, south of Tokyo, with the aim of breaking the old Singaporean men's 5000 m national record of 14:57.61. In rainy conditions Ren succeeded in his goal, patiently following the advice of his training partner Jason Lawrence to start at the back of the field and progressively move up. Ren executed the plan perfectly and easily achieved his mark with a new national record of 14:51.09. "I'm so happy today," Ren said afterwards. "This year we did three 5000 m races. The first one was 15:17, then 15:06, and today 14:51. Jason organized this race in Japan because Japanese [meets] are known to have many heats and many people in one heat and they all run about the same time. So today I hoped to follow when the race started and hoped to catch them one by one, and then hopefully a new Singapore national record. I think it went as planned."
Top-ranked university man Akinobu Murasawa (Tokai Univ.) led the heat with a solo 14:05.12 before returning shortly afterwards with a 3:53.57 for 1500 m against teammate and 2011 Kanto region 10000 m champion Tsubasa Hayakawa (Tokai Univ.) who won in 3:53.11.
Tokai University Time Trials
Tokai Univ., Kanagawa, 5/28/11
Men's 5000 m Heat 6
1. Akinobu Murasawa (Tokai Univ.) - 14:05.12
2. Hisanori Nonaka (Tokai Univ.) - 14:36.25
3. Hiroyuki Ishikawa (Tokai Univ.) - 14:40.24
4. Ryo Koizumi (Tokai Univ.) - 14:48.03
5. Mok Ying Ren (Singapore) - 14:51.09 - NR
(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Comments
Fantastic achievement for a medical student, and in a country where sports in hardly a priority.