Under-publicity for Shereen’s athletic feat: Blame it on busy election weekend

Under-publicity for Shereen’s athletic feat: Blame it on busy election weekend




YOURS truly has no intention to insinuate any element of favouritism nor racism (at worse) except that two young female Malaysian athletes excelled at the world stage in recent times.

On Wednesday (March 16), both The Star and New Straits Times featured in their sports section water skier Aaliyah Yoong Hanifah’s success in producing a golden finish at the Moomba Masters in Melbourne.

The 18-year-old Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD) Star Scholar’s exploits on the Yarra River earned her the overall gold ahead of Chile’s Valentina Gonzalez and New Zealand’s Courtney Williams for the overall title.

While Aaliyah’s name was in the limelight, there was silence with regard to the achievement of track star Shereen Vallabouy who emerged queen of indoor 400m in the second-tier US college athletics championship.

Very frankly, nobody knew about Shereen – the youngest daughter of Malaysia’s decorated middle-distance running couple Samson Vallabouy and Josephine Mary Singarayar – excelling in the US if not for the exposé by sports journo great Frankie D’Cruz in the Free Malaysia Today portal via his piece “Malaysian Track Star Rocks US, Where’s the Noise in Malaysia?” (March 16, 2022).



Shereen eventually emerged the best of the best 400m racers by setting a new championship mark and a Malaysian record of 53.79s at Pittsburg State University, Kansas.

Nearly 300 teams and over 1,000 individual athletes contested the women’s indoor 400m title at the start of the 2021-22 US National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division II track and field campaign.

Apparently, Shereen who is at her senior year at Winona State University, Minnesota, studying recreation and tourism on an athletics scholarship is the first Malaysian female runner to go under 54 seconds in indoor 400m, breaking the national record of 54.58s by Noraseela Mohd Khalid in 2006.

The outdoor 400m Malaysian record of 52.56s by Rabia Abdul Salam still stands after 29 years while Shereen’s Olympian mother, Josephine Mary, remains the second fastest at 52.65s.

“Her feat should have brought some degree of optimism to Malaysian athletics that is lightweight, heading into majors this year. It didn’t,” lamented D’Cruz.

“The Malaysia Athletics Federation, National Sports Council, Olympic Council of Malaysia and the (Youth and) Sports Ministry appeared detached from the fact that a national record was broken by Shereen at a premier athletics meet in the US.”

A belated kudos to Shereen but one cannot help imagine that such tidak apa (literally couldn’t be bothered) attitude by the Malaysian sports authorities in general are reasons that have prompted home-grown talents to shift their allegiance to foster countries that cherish their talents.

One good example would be Penang-born Loh Kean Yew who is today Singapore’s reigning world champion after winning the title at the 2021 BWF World Championships in Huelva, Spain.

In all probability, it could be that last weekend (which coincided with Shereen’s feat) was a bad timing as the whole country was glued to the outcome of the Johor state election. As an industry old hand, yours truly can vouch that most newsmen were on the overdrive with the election outcome being their focal point.

That could be one reason why Shereen was robbed of her glory not publicised in the mainstream media till D’Cruz broke the news.

Another reason is that many sporting bodies in Malaysia are saddled with the patronage of politicians, hence developments pertaining to the Johor state election again took centre stage. – March 17, 2022



Main photo credit: Free Malaysia Today