KUALA LUMPUR: Sprinter Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli is disheartened as her national 100m record could be nullified due to technical issues.
Her coach, Poad Kassim, criticised the Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) for an error in submitting the Perlis Open results to World Athletics (WA) for verification.
Zaidatul broke a 31-year-old record of 11.50s set by G. Shanti by clocking 11.49s at the Perlis Open in October. However, WA has yet to recognise her achievement due to MAF's failure to submit the wind reading alongside the event results.
Poad revealed that the 31-year-old initially thought her record was immediately nullified and was deeply upset.
"But I was told that there was a mistake during the submission of the results," he said.
Poad urged MAF to exercise greater caution to prevent such errors, which could harm athletes' mental well-being.
"MAF must take extra care and avoid making errors, especially concerning the results of national athletes," he added.
MAF technical director John Ballard acknowledged the mistake, blaming it to an administrative oversight.
"The wind readings for sprint, jump, and hurdle events were initially not submitted to WA together with the results.
"We have written to WA and submitted all the results with the wind readings. We have also provided the link to the Perlis Open results.
"Hopefully, WA will rectify this by next week.
Ballard added: "Zaidatul should not worry. Her national record was set with a wind reading of minus 0.2, and it still stands."