Great Eastern Women 10km Race (Part 1)

Great Eastern Women 10km Race - A great day for Vivian Tang, the Women Open winner and Sheryl Loh who is considered the fastest runner in the women Junior as she is under 19 years of age.

Note: Official Results are found after this article.

Today, I woke up very early in the morning to see three of our current Hwa Chong Institution (college) girls run in the Great Eastern Women's 10km Race. At the same time, Sheryl Loh, our former Hwa Chong Institution (college) tennis player also joined the three girls by taking part in this race. The start of the race was a fifteen minutes walk from the finish line.

After the start of the race, I was waiting at the finishing point, which was directly in line with the Cenotaph, near Padang, at Connaught Drive. It was a long wait until I heard the announcer announcing from the mike system that the first runner was coming in. My first guess was that the runner must be from Kenya. After some time, I heard the name announced as Vivian Tang. She was coming in first, having a huge lead over the next runner, who was second. At the finish, I saw the electronic time as 37min 43sec. Next was Trudy Fawcett from United Kingdom with a time of 40min 01sec. In third position, it was Patlovich, a Singapore, with a time of 40min 20sec.

Suddenly, just behind Patlovich, it was none other than Sheryl Loh, who at present is  training with me and she was just behind Patlovich. Sheryl's time was 40min 36sec, according to the electronic time. Elaine Lim, was fifth. I saw her waving her hand at me. I too waved back at her. It is known that she is right now pursuing her further studies by doing her masters. Eventually, from 6 to 10 position, I saw 5 female adult runners running neck to neck and posted a time of 41min 48sec, 41min 50sec, 41min 51sec, 41min 52sec and 41min 56sec, respectively.

After a while, I saw Pamela Chia, our former Hwa Chong Institution (college) sportsgirl of the year award winner, doing a creditable time of 42mins plus for the race, according to the gantry. I saw her raising her hand up high when she was about to finish her race. It seemed as though that there was still more energy in her. It was very encouraging to see her run.

After the race, I took some shots of Sheryl Loh. Her time was a vast improvement from her run in the New Balance 10km/15km Real Run, recently, at Aviation Park Road. I knew that she was already first for the women junior and I told her that. I said that the three of them are all adults. She was also third local for the women open. She was very happy to hear this.

While taking some shots, I interviewed Vivian Tang on her improvement in her time. She immediately told me that the timing has some adjustments to be done. She believed her timing to be more that the 37min 43sec, probably 38mins plus. Sheryl Loh also told me that she believed her timing to be somewhere 41min plus and not 40min plus as indicated by the gantry. She told me that there is something wrong in the timing.

After interviewing both of them, I decided to talk to Alexandria Wong, Hwa Chong Institution's college captain for girls. After her exams, she has done a sub 55min which was a good sign of progress as she had just started training. After a thorough discussion with Sheryl on her race, finally, I left the Padang area to go home and have a good rest. It was an inspiring day!

Official Overall Women 10km Time
No Chip F  Gun Time Con Name
1 38m 32s   38m 32s  Singapore Vivian Tang
2 40m 54s   40m 55s  United Kingdom Trudy Fawcett
3 41m 06s   41m 10s  Singapore Patlovich
4 41m 24s   41m 25s  Singapore Sheryl Loh
5 41m 43s   41m 44s  Singapore Elaine Lim
6 42m 36s   42m 36s  Ireland    Siobhan Mchugh
7 42m 38s   42m 39s  Singapore  Andrea Kovacs
8 42m 39s   42m 40s  South Africa Carine Rossouw
9 42m 30s   42m 41s  Lituania  Ocesra Tosello
10 42m 44s  42m 45s Singapore Jeraldine Collett

43m 40s  Sin Pamela Chia
54min 28s Sin Alexandria Wong