KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 (Bernama) -- National shot putter Jonah Chang Rigan, who clinched the gold medal at the 2026 Higher Education Institutions Sports Games (SUKIPT) here today, aims to break his own national record of 19.12 metres (m) again by the end of this year at the latest.
The 23-year-old Sarawakian, who hurled the shot put to a distance of 18.22m to erase the previous SUKIPT mark of 16.33 set by Adi Alifuddin Hussin today, had already broken his national record twice this year - recording distances of 8.81m at the Asian Throws Championships in South Korea in May and 19.12m at the XXXV Qosanov Memorial Athletics Championships in Kazakhstan in July.
According to Jonah, the Sept 19-Oct 4 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan and the Dec10-19 Southeast Asian University Games (AUG) in Malaysia are among the target platforms where he hopes to produce a longer throw and rewrite the national record.
“I want to do it (break the national record) at the Asian Games or the AUG because there will be better competitors there.
“The competition will be tougher and the atmosphere will also be different compared with SUKIPT,” he said when met after today’s SUKIPT shot put event at the Universiti Malaya Arena here.
With Jonah, representing UM, miles ahead of his SUKIPT challengers, Nathaniel Majid (14.79m) of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) took silver and Kamal Farhan A. Rahman (14.44m) ofi Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) settling for bronze.
Asked about his performance today, Jonah said he was satisfied with his throw despite not having fully recovered from an injury to his left ankle.
“Considering that I have not fully recovered from the injury, I did not set high expectations. I managed to make an 18-metre throw today, so that is a good thing,” he said.
-- BERNAMA