PHNOM PENH ATHLETICS CLUB

With this week's event being unfortunately washed out, and with some shorter track distance events and relay races coming up in the next few weeks Phnom Penh Athletics Club took the opportunity to get hold of some much needed new pieces of equipment. A set of forty multi-coloured cones will ensure the upcoming 4x100m relay course can be set out clearly with colour-coding to differentiate the start and finish lines, 100m splits and the start & end of the three takeover zones. These cones are also great for setting up athletics training exercises in the week. The 300-split memory stopwatch should be sufficient for hand-timing the club's races for the time being! These equipment purchases were made possible with the support of donations from participants. Club events are generally free to enter so that they can remain accessible to as many people as possible, however, we welcome donations from participants (and the general pu...

September's 5km road race took place in ideal conditions and we were delighted to welcome four 5k first timers (including three complete newcomers to PPAC) ensuring both youth and senior athletes were well represented. In the youth race first timer Erika put in a great effort to cross the line first in 28:38 while Andarge and Yin Ling topped their respective categories in the senior race. Youth athlete Sivmey produced the biggest improvement of the morning lowering her PB by an impressive margin of 8:23! In the senior race Guanghai, Vannak and Lorinda produced strong performances to lower their personal bests by 41, 47 and 55 seconds, equating to improvements of around 3% for all three. There were Points PBs for Vannak and Dickson and Sokha Best Laps for Sanket, Dickson and Sivmey. The race saw four extremely consistent performances, all with ratings well under 1.00, with Muyngim top this week,...

A high quality field lined up for only the second 10km road race of 2021. We welcomed two first timers and eleven athletes were running their first PPAC 10km race - a great opportunity to set a marker for long distance form as we head into the cooler months. We were treated to another great performance and PPAC club record as Andarge set a new PB of 36:16 as personal records tumbled across the board. The day's biggest improvement came from Matt, continuing an amazing run of form, slashing 2:04 off his previous best closely followed by James and Jack with respective 1:37 and 55-second improvements. There were five Points PB's with big jumps for Guanghui and Dickson. Well done to youth athlete Sreyleap for finishing comfortably under one hour in her first 10km race! Mark produced by far the most consistent performance of the day, with Guanghui and top female finisher Yin Ling also sub-1.00 for consistency. The only athlete to record ...

The 3km road race is a great opportunity to gauge if you have that extra bit of speed that will help you push for strong times in longer races down the line, in addition to the aerobic endurance you'll also need to have under your belt. It's also a great chance for younger athletes to get involved and experience racing something close to a high school cross country distance. We were honoured this week to welcome for the first time H.E. Samheng Boros, the new president of the Khmer Amateur Athletic Federation, participating alongside four other new athletes. There were great performances all round in the 3km road race, including a notable performance by Andarge, becoming the second PPAC athlete to go under 10 minutes and improving on Bunthorn's club record by a margin of 2.6s with his time of 9:56. In the youth race, Piseth finished just ahead of Sreyleap, however, Sreyleap's proved to be the stronge...

August's 5km road race took place in heavy overcast and humid conditions but we were delighted to welcome five 5k first timers and a few familiar faces to make brilliant use of the day's best weather conditions! Results below are ordered by PPAC points performance and finish time. The standout performance of the morning was James setting a new PB by 2.6s as well is hitting a new points PB of 504.5 for fourth overall and going sub-20 for the first time in a PPAC 5km race. Mark and Jack ran exceptionally consistently and newcomer Somaly rounded out the top three in the consistency rankings with James and Sanket also running well-paced efforts. First timers Sanket and Simon both finished the race very strongly with their 2nd loops around Sokha over a minute quicker than their first, suggesting there is much more to come! Great to see so many new faces this week, thanks to our team of race ...

The final youth heats of the 1500m Road Race brought the Festival of Speed to a close, with fourteen young athletes racing over two heats on a relocated course. First up were the female youth athletes, setting off to complete three laps of the circuit before finishing the race back at the starting line. Senglim was first across the line followed by Sreypich, the athletes securing second and third place respectively in the overall race result behind Sreyleap who recorded the best time of 6:51.56 in the previous week's race. All athletes completed the course within 12 minutes. The second heat featured a mix of youth and senior male and female athletes, including event winners Sreyleap and Piseth. Senghong was first across the line in 7:06.52, short of Piseth's previous effort of 6:28.45, and all athletes completed the race under 10 minutes. Final standings after 3 of 3 events In the final points table for the youth competition, Sreyleap and Piseth's three wins meant they bo...

After a short delay the senior 1500m road race - the concluding event of the Festival of Speed - took place with four closely contested heats. Some youth athletes also took part and we hope the remaining youth athletes will be able to complete their event very soon (full youth event results and report will follow in a separate blog post). With a slightly later start than recent events heats were scheduled at ten minute intervals with up to five athletes contesting a heat. Starting line numbers were limited to avoid crowding from the start with three-laps to be raced around an urban course with some short stretches and tight corners. The heats went roughly in order of competition points ranking with the top male and female athletes kept together while race officials also competing were put in separate heats.  In the first heat Andarge cemented his place at the top of the rankings with a third race win, starting strongly, staying just in front and pulling away very strongly up the f...