Track queen Annie, Malaysia’s first woman Olympian

 

Annie Choong beaming with pride after being inducted into the Olympic Council of Malaysia Hall of Fame in 2017. (OCM pic)

PETALING JAYA: Before the likes of M Rajamani and Marina Chin, who are credited with stimulating the popularity of track and field among girls and women, there was Annie Choong.

The sprint queen of the 1950s, Choong was the first Malaysian woman to compete in the Olympics at a time when most females fought shy of sports.

As a 22-year-old, she was the only woman athlete among the 32 competitors when Malaya made its Olympic debut in Melbourne in 1956.

She competed in the 100 yards on merit and might have been eliminated in the heats, clocking 12.73 seconds to finish fourth, but the impact she had on women’s sports in Malaysia was notable.

Annie Choong (lane six) clocked 12.73s to finish fourth in the 100 yards heats at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. (Annie Choong pic).

While the country’s participation at the Rome Olympics four years later saw only nine male competitors due to insufficient funds, four of the 62 athletes in Tokyo in 1964 were women.

At the Tokyo Games, the only time when Singaporeans marched as Malaysians, Rajamani, running the 400m, and swimmers Jovina Tseng, Marny Jolly and Molly Tay continued to make a positive impact on women in sports.

Rajamani’s 57.8 seconds over the distance was commendable as until 1960 women were banned from running distances over 200m in the Olympics, because the International Olympic Council was convinced that their bodies could not cope with the strain.

Now, for the first time, female athletes will form the majority of the Malaysian Olympic party at the Games in Tokyo, beginning July 18.

There are 18 women in the 30-member contingent, poised to give a good idea of exactly where Malaysian women’s sport is at.

Choong said she was elated that women were seen as integral to the national Olympic team as men.

“Women in sport were few in my time and I hope this batch will further inspire girls to compete on the global stage,” said Choong, now 87. She was inducted into the Olympic Council of Malaysia’s Hall of Fame in 2017.

Multi-discipline star: Annie Choong, pictured leaping at the Selangor Padang in 1954, held the national record that year with a distance of 5.33m. (OCM pic)

Sixty-five years ago, when Choong was running the 100 yard and 200 yard sprints and doing the long jump and high jump, women were not encouraged to participate in sports.

In a wider social context, she could perhaps be appreciated as a representative of tangled struggles.

She was a rare female athlete in an era when the likes of her were not readily accepted in the male-dominated sporting world.

Her plight — financial squeeze, no government support and gender bias – would have made many current athletes give up sports.

Choong’s father bought her spikes and attire, and a bicycle to go from her home in Kampung Baru to her office in Ampang and to Cheras for training.

She said she juggled time between work and training, and trained seven days a week under Lim Thye Hee and Lee Fun, her coaches for the sprints and long jump respectively.

The toughest thing for Choong and the other Melbourne-bound athletes was to find money to pay their way to the Games.

As the government provided no financial support, they had to raise money themselves, mostly through door to door donations.

Choong said shop owners along Batu Road in Kuala Lumpur (now Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman) gave generously, between $5 and $100, “perhaps telling themselves I was representing all the girls here at the Olympics”.

The men in the athletics squad were Lee Kah Fook (100m/200m), Raja Azlam Ngah Ali (100m), Sinnayah Karuppiah Jarabalan (100m), Abdul Rahim Ahmad (400m), Kenneth Perera (400m/800m) and Manikavagasam Harichandra (800m).

Members of the 4x100m relay team ranked fourth at the 1954 Manila Asian Games with a time of 50.7s. (L-R): Annie Choong, Carmen Koelmeyer, Maureen Siebel and Fay Siebel. (OCM pic)

In Melbourne, they got $5 as daily allowance but the incentive they looked forward to was hearing the national anthem being played. It did not happen.

“I took part for the glory of the nation without thinking of self- benefit,” said Choong, who also represented Malaya in the second Asian Games in Manila, 1954 (long jump and 4x100m relay) and the third in Tokyo,1958 (100m and 200m).

She said since sportspeople were now treated well and enjoyed super facilities, they should strive to bring glory to the nation and rid themselves of the handout mentality.

Does she miss speed?

Treasured moment: Annie Choong with legendary American athlete, Jesse Owens, when he visited Malaya in 1956. Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, (Annie Choong pic).

The sprightly woman, who switched briefly to motor racing after her retirement from athletics in 1960, said laughingly: “I still drive at my age – slowly.”

Until the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Choong kept fit by exercising with other senior citizens in Kelana Jaya, where she lives.

She now devotes much of her time to church work.

“My sports are confined to watching football on TV. I’m also looking forward to the Tokyo Olympics where I hope our athletes will do well,” said Choong. - FMT