NATIONAL women sprinter Shereen Samson Vallabouy will compete at the 2025 World Athletics Championship from Sept 13 to 21 in Tokyo as a wild card entrant.
Malaysia Athletics Federation (MA) president Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim announced the matter, stating that the decision to award Shereen the wildcard was based on her current performance.
“What’s important is that based on performance, Shereen has been chosen,” he said at a media conference after the federation’s council meeting here today.
Meanwhile, MA athletics technical director Robert Ballard said that other athletes could still qualify for the World Athletics Championship based on merit as the qualifiers were still ongoing currently and that Shereen would need to beat the qualifying mark of 11.07 seconds for the 100 metres (m), 22.57s (200m) and 50.75s (400m) to qualify on merit.
The United States-based Shereen had won her first title this year in the women’s 400 m at the 2025 Embry-Riddle Running Elements Classic in Florida, the US representing Life Speed with a time of 53.72 s.
In a separate development, Shahidan said that MA planned to send 37 athletes and seven coaches to the 2025 Asian Athletics Championship, South Korea from May 27 to 31 as preparation for the 2025 South East Asian (SEA) Games in Thailand from Dec 7 to 19.
The federation has also determined that national athletes would join six local championships before the SEA Games.
He also related that MA would send an appeal to the National Sports Council to allow 194 athletes to participate in its training programme as currently the council had only allowed 85 athletes to join
