Will Rajkumar S Decades Long National 800m Record Ever Be Broken

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Entrepreneur B Rajkumar (left) and winning gold in the 800m at the 1985 AAC in Jakarta. (B Rajkumar pic)PETALING JAYA: As a 15-year-old, B Rajkumar took his first bus trip from Kuala Kubu Bharu to Kuala Lumpur to compete in the Selangor schools athletics meet at Merdeka Stadium in 1980.
The Hulu Selangor district champion in the 800m and 1500m won both the events running with his first pair of spikes paid for by A Vaithilingam, then Selangor Schools Sports Council secretary.
The boy wonder from SMK Haji Kamaruddin was selected to attend the Selangor “Kem Bakat” under schoolteacher and head coach Rennie Martin, and went on to break two Selangor records.
Martin predicted that Rajkumar, who had been discovered and trained by former national middle-distance coach A Trapadi, would “make middle distance running special”.
In 1985, a rapidly improving Rajkumar ran an unbelievable 800m race that shook Asian athletics.
He took gold at the Asian athletics championships (AAC) in Jakarta, setting a new meet and national record of 1:47.37 on a Mondo track to break Indian Sriram Singh’s record of 1:47.8, set 10 years earlier.
Rajkumar’s unexpected win was a feat embedded into the folklore of middle-distance running in Asia in the 1980s when runners from the Middle East, India, Japan and Korea were dominant.
“I hope I will soon get to shake the hand of the person who breaks my national record,” said Rajkumar, alluding to his 38-year-old mark.
B Rajkumar training in Cologne, West Germany, where the ‘rabbit’ ploy was hatched before the AAC in Jakarta in 1985. (B Rajkumar pic)His timing remains the sixth fastest in the 800m since the biennial AAC began in 1973 in the Philippines.
It was the fastest until 2003 when Adam Abdou Adam Ali of Qatar registered 1:46.20, only for it to be bettered two years later by another Qatari, Sultan Majed Saeed, whose time of 1:44.27 remains the current record.
“It was the run of my athletics career, and it was about Malaysian pride and being the best in Asia,” Rajkumar reflected ahead of the 25th edition of the AAC in Pattaya, Thailand, from July 12 to 16.
His secret? “Preparation, tenacity and confidence,” he said.
After the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Rajkumar and his teammate, R Haridas, trained in West Germany for three months under middle and long-distance coach Henning von Papen.
At the Senayan Madya Stadium in Jakarta in late September of 1985, both the runners executed the German’s “rabbit” (pacesetter) strategy that they had worked on tirelessly.
Haridas acted as the “rabbit” to draw the favourites – Indian Charles Borromeo and South Korean Ryu Tae-Kyung – into keeping pace with him.
“He tired both the runners to let me surge clear of them in the last 100m,” Rajkumar recalled, a little disappointed that it wasn’t a 1:46 race.
B Rajkumar (squatting, centre) with Kenyan cross-country runners training in Kuala Kubu Bharu. (B Rajkumar pic)Borromeo, who had recorded 1:46.81 to win gold at the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi, was stunned into second place, while bronze medallist Ryu asked the press after the race, “Who was that guy?”
Haridas finished fourth with a personal best of 1:49.17, but he came back strongly to clinch the bronze in 1:48.27 two years later when Rajkumar had quit running due to personal reasons.
Malaysia won six gold medals at the AAC in 1975, 1981, 1985, 1991 and in 2007.
The champions were Khoo Chong Beng (men’s 20km walk,1975), V Angamah, Mumtaz Jaafar, Saik Oik Sum and Marina Chin (women’s 4x400m, 1981), Rajkumar (men’s 800m, 1985), Nur Herman Majid (men’s 110m hurdles, 1991), Lee Hup Wei (men’s high jump, 2007) and Roslinda Samsu (women’s pole vault, 2007).
Malaysia medalled in every meet from 1973 to 2017, winning 16 silver and 27 bronze medals in total as well, except in 2019. Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the 2021 competition in China.
In 2017, Muhammad Irfan Shamsuddin won the silver medal in the discus, the first medal in a throwing event at the championships since javelin thrower Nashatar Singh Sidhu finished second in 1973.
Little is expected from the Malaysian team at Pattaya, which is the final chance for the athletes to qualify for the Hangzhou Asian Games from Sept 23 to Oct 8.
Rajkumar said there was a lack of athletics culture in Malaysia and efforts should be made to develop well-structured junior development programmes.
Former athletes like Giridran (left), David Anthony and Samson Vallabouy (right) often meet B Rajkumar (centre) to seek his wisdom in sports management and business. (Samson Vallabouy pic)“Where have all the middle and long-distance runners gone? Why are the few we have performing poorly at the international level?” he asked.
He has offered to groom young middle and long-distance talents into international achievers through his sports outfit KKBX Sports that once brought in junior Kenyan cross-country runners to train in Kuala Kubu Bharu.
Rajkumar, 58, has gone from sporting hero to entrepreneur, with the sportsman spirit intact.
He has ventures from hospitality, property, ecotourism, oil and gas tools, and wagon and train depot equipment to sports management.
Rajkumar said his tenacity and confidence in the business world was a direct motivation from his running days, and his virtues are often sought by former athletes involved in grassroots initiatives.
His showing in Jakarta in 1985 put him on the global stage, representing Asia at the IAAF World Cup in Canberra where he performed creditably.
At the 1983 Singapore Sea Games, Rajkumar won the 800m and 1500m, while in the heat of the two-lap race at the 1984 Olympics, he finished fifth behind the eventual gold medallist, Joaquim Cruz of Brazil, and England’s 1980 gold medallist Steve Ovett. - FMT

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