MALAYSIA FIRST LADY OF OLYMPICS

Annie Choong was the first and only female athlete when then Malaya made its Olympic debut in the Melbourne Games in 1956, taking part in the 100 yards, 200 yards sprint and long jump.

Choong is still around. Now in her 70s, the lady, still slim, sprightly, active and looking much younger than her age, talks fondly of those days.

There were seven of them in the athletics team then, and didn’t have the kind of dedicated training and coaching that athletes these days get. She said she would get up in the morning, go to work and then cycle from Kampung Baru to Cheras where the training was done. And exhausted after the training, she would cycle back home, only to get up and go to work again the following day. 

Choong with Owens when he came to Malaysia.

 

Choong had two coaches, Lim Thye Hee for the sprints and Lee Fun for the long jump. Both had been to the Olympics.

Back then, when world-class facilities and infrastructure for sports in Malaysia were non-existent, the key to her success was obeying her coach.

“We took our training very seriously. The younger generation of athletes now have good coaches but I hope they obey them,” she said.

Another lady sports pioneer, Datuk M. Rajamani, who participated in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 in track and field was also honoured at the event.

She is a Ceylonese and many people in her community were not too happy when she was running around in shorts. They would pass nasty remarks to her father. With full confidence, her late father knew what she was doing and had a lot of trust in Rajamani.

In 1968, just 24 years old and at the peak of her career, fate struck a cruel blow to end her athletic exploits prematurely. While training with two of her friends, with the Olympic Games in mind, they were struck by lightning. It killed her friend P.N. Govindan and left Rajamani in coma for 18 hours. She survived but her nervous system was in tatters and she suffered a temporary loss of memory.

Asian Track Queen

 

While she appreciated the benefits that the Government had allocated for senior citizens, she said it should do more for retired athletes.

If there is no incentive for retired athletes, it is not going to motivate the young ones.

Both Rajamani and Choong, together with five other recipients of the senior citizen awards, were also given unspecified cash awards.