HONG KONG cross country champion Lee Kar-lun kept the Watson's Athletic Club flag flying high on the closing day of the 56th Singapore Open Track and Field Championships with a great run to take the men's 10,000 metres silver medal at the New Serangoon Road Stadium yesterday.
Clocking a creditable 33 minutes and 27.4 seconds in the heat of the afternoon, Lee finished second behind Korean Asian Games representative Cho Young-do who breezed home in 32:18.6 as two of the eight runners dropped out in the torrid conditions.
Yesterday's run will give 36-year-old Lee a boost for the World Half-Marathon Championships to be held in Oslo, Norway, later this month.
With the standards in this year's Singapore championships very high ahead of next month's Hiroshima Asian Games, none of the other competitors from the Hong Kong Amateur Athletic Association (HKAAA) or Watson's teams came even close to a medal.
Watson's women's triple jumper Anthea Li Chun-nei struggled to cope with a non-standard take-off board distance of 11.20 metres as opposed to the IAAF 11.00 metres and could only finish sixth with a distance of 12.09 metres in the women's triple jump.
The event was won by China's Chen Huoqiang in a new Asian and championship record of 13.51 metres, almost a full metre ahead of second-placed Emi Taniguchi of Japan who cleared 12.68 metres.