Lee and Goh Solid on the Gold Coast

Both clock 5km road race national marks in Australia and are targeting 2025 SEA Games

- David Lee

Despite encountering flight delays that doubled her trip to a full-day affair, Singapore distance runner Vanessa Lee managed to claim the women's 5km road race national record at the Gold Coast Marathon.

On July 5, the 27-year-old completed the race in 16min 57sec to finish as the fourth-fastest female competitor and go under Goh Chui Ling's previous mark of 17:08 clocked in 2022.

She said: "I'm especially grateful that everything came together on race day because the 48 hours leading up to it were chaotic.

"My Scoot flight to Melbourne was delayed from 2.30am to 6.30am and I missed my connecting flight to Gold Coast. Virgin Australia was really nice to put me on the next available flight, but that ended up delaying for another one hour as well, so I took almost 24 hours to get to the Gold Coast."

To make matters worse, Lee fell sick after the flights, but she managed to recover in time to put in a strong performance.