HANOI: Nor Sarah Adi, who sees herself more as a sprinter, surprisingly won women's pole vault gold today at the Sea Games.
Sarah easily cleared 4m at the My Dinh National Stadium for first place while Thailand's Chonthicha Khabut (3.8m) finished second and Filipina Alyana Joyce Nicolas Martinez (3.6m) was third.
The Pahang-born Sarah said her main focus in Hanoi was actually on the 4x100m relay.
"I qualified to race in the 4x100m but was also given the opportunity to compete in the pole vault. This kind of opportunity doesn't come often even though I didn't have much time to prepare.
"I suffered a back injury last week but I guess it (winning gold) was just meant to be. I still managed 4m and improved on my personal best. Winning this gold is like a dream," said Sarah, who later teamed up with S. Komalam Shally, Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli and Azreen Nabila Alias to win the women's 4x100m bronze after clocking 45.32s.
Thailand won the gold on 44.39s while Vietnam finished second (45.25s).
The national 4x100m men's team of Arsyad Md Saat, Zulfiqar Ismail, Azeem Mohd Fahmi and Haiqal Hanafi set a new national record of 39.09s en route to the silver. The previous record was 39.27s set at the Kuala Lumpur edition in 2017.
Thailand won the men's 4x100m gold in a Games record time of 38.58s while Singapore bagged the bronze with 39.44s.
Queenie Ting erased her national record of 48.56m in the women's discus with a throw of 52.36m to win silver behind Thailand's Subenrat Insaeng who won on 53.09m. Malaysia's Choo Kang Ni (46.57m) completed the podium.
Savinder Kaur Jogindr Singh did well to place third in the women's 800m final after clocking 2:10.240s behind Indonesian Agustina Manik Mardika (2:09.990s) and Vietnam's Ann Khuat Phuong (2:08.740s).
The men's 110m final saw Rayzam Syah Wan Sofian finish seventh on 14.80s behind teammate Rizzua Haizad Muhamad who was fifth (14.29s).