ZAIDATUL OPTIMISTIC MAF WILL RESOLVE UNRECOGNISED NATIONAL RECORD ISSUE

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 4 (Bernama) -- National sprint queen Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli is optimistic that the Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) will resolve the issue surrounding her 100m national record, which has yet to receive recognition from World Athletics (WA).

The 31-year-old sprinter said MAF’s Technical Director, Robert J Ballard had assured her that the matter would be resolved within 48 hours starting from yesterday.

She said that she only became aware of the issue after being contacted by several local media outlets yesterday, before Ballard later explained the situation to the Kedah-born athlete.

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“MAF, through Ballard, has already explained the issue to me. He clarified that there were some problems with the submission of documentation when reporting to WA. However, Ballard assured me that MAF would resolve the matter within 48 hours.

“I also hope this issue will be resolved soon because I do not want a repeat of what happened seven years ago when my (100m) record was deemed invalid. It was traumatising, especially after working so hard to break the record,” she told Bernama today.

Zaidatul, who is fondly known as ‘Adeq,’ expressed her hope that such issues would not happen again in the future to maintain the credibility of competitions and ensure that athletes are not discouraged from participating.

In October, Zaidatul made headlines at the Perlis Open Athletics Championship when she broke the 31-year-old 100m record, clocking 11.49 seconds (s). She erased G. Shanti’s previous record of 11.50s, set in Kuala Lumpur on May 7, 1993.

However, technical issues related to wind readings have delayed MAF from officially recognising it as a national record.

During the event at Stadium Tuanku Syed Putra, the silver medal went to Nur Afrina Batrisyia Rizal, who clocked 11.91s, while Azreen Nabila Alias finished third in 12s.

Yesterday, local media reported that Ballard revealed an administrative oversight that resulted in all wind readings for sprints, jumps and hurdles events at the Perlis Open in October being omitted from the official results.

Ballard stated that MAF is currently working to recover the wind data for all affected events, which will be submitted to WA once obtained.

For the record, in 2017, Zaidatul faced a similar issue when her 100M national record attempt was not recogniSed due to wind assistance of 2.5 seconds at the AGN League 7 Athletics Championship in Pretoria, South Africa.

During that competition, Zaidatul clocked 11.36 seconds, which was faster than Shanti’s 1993 national record of 11.50 seconds. However, the result was invalidated due to excessive wind assistance.

-- BERNAMA