Super Shereen becomes 3rd fastest Malaysian woman over 400m

 

Shereen Vallabouy got on top of the podium again, giving Malaysian athletics new hope. (Winona State University pic)

PETALING JAYA: Packing a scorching pace, US-based athlete Shereen Samson Vallabouy became the third fastest Malaysian woman over the 400m at an outdoor college meet yesterday.

She clocked 52.68s to win the race by a big margin and declared: “I will keep dreaming big”.

Shereen joined Rabia Abdul Salam and her Olympian mother, Josephine Mary Singarayar, as the only Malaysian female athletes to dip below 53 seconds in the 400m.

The 400m Malaysian record of 52.56s by Rabia still stands after 29 years while Josephine is the second fastest at 52.65s.

Last March, Shereen was also the first Malaysian woman to go under 54 seconds in indoor 400m, clocking 53.79s, to break the 16-year-old Malaysian record of 54.58s by Noraseela Mohd Khalid.

Her latest feat was achieved at the US National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division II track and field championships, the same meet at which she won the indoor title.

Shereen, 24, from Ipoh, is doing a degree in recreation and tourism at Winona State University in Minnesota on an athletics scholarship.

Shereen Vallabouy ran a blistering 400m in 52.68s to join her mother Josephine Mary and Rabia Abdul Salam as the only Malaysian women to run under 53s in the event (Winona State University pic)

She has received US$52,000 (RM228,000) backing from tycoon Vincent Tan’s Better Malaysia Foundation (BMF) to help her pursue academic and sporting excellence.

The BMF aid followed a FMT report on Shereen’s rise in the highly-competitive US college athletics and her parents’ struggle to meet her living expenses in the US.

Shereen is the youngest daughter of Josephine, a former middle-distance sensation and national elite coach, and Samson Vallabouy whose 800m timing of 1:48.29s in 1989 remains the oldest record in Sea Games men’s athletics.

An elated Josephine said: “I feel so happy for her. God has blessed her abundantly. There’s no stopping her now.”

Josephine noted that her daughter’s timing of 52.68s was faster than the 52.83s by Vietnamese 400m gold medallist, Nguyen Thi Huyen, at the recent Hanoi Sea Games.

Shereen recently became the fastest 200m female runner in the country with a time of 23.52s. It matched the timing of Singapore’s Shanti Pereira who took gold at the Hanoi Sea Games.

Malaysia-born Liew Wai Hon, an educator and life coach in Minnesota, said Shereen’s latest win was a “very big one” that put her in the league of division one athletes.

“Her accomplishment could earn her a free graduate scholarship from most US universities to do her masters,” said Liew, who was instrumental in getting Shereen to study and train in the US. - FMT