Puripol happy to go sub-l0sec and proud of his gold

Born in Surin province in Isan, the 19-year-old hails from a country known for producing some of Southeast Asia’s quickest runners, including 1970s star Suchart Jairsuraparp and six-gold SEA Games champion Jirapong Meenapra.

- Melvyn Teoh

Puripol is at the top of the pack now, after achieving what no sprinter in the region has achieved. On Dec 11, the teenager became the first man from Southeast Asia to go under 10 seconds in the 100m sprint.

In the heats at the Suphachalasai National Stadium, he clocked 9.94 seconds to better the SEA Games record of 10.17sec posted by Indonesia’s Suryo Agung Wibowo in 2009.

His timing also surpassed the fastest time by a Southeast Asian runner, which was the 10.03sec clocked by Indonesia’s Lalu Zohri in 2019.

Two hours later, he followed it up with a gold-medal winning dash of 10sec in the blue-riband event to finish ahead of Lalu (10.25) and Malaysia’s Danish Iftikhar Roslee (10.26).