NATIONAL 100m record holder Md Fakhri Ismail hopes to set a new national record at the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland, USA, next month.

The event will be Md Fakhri’s first time ever competing in an indoor race, but despite that, he still believes he can set a new national record in the 60m category. “My aim is to beat the previous national record set by Shahriful Bahrin Zainal (7.44s) in 2008 in Spain,” the national sprinter told The Brunei Times on Wednesday.

“It will be a different experience for me as the race will be held in an indoor venue and the distance is shorter than the race I’m familiar with. “However, we have been working on different aspects to prepare myself for the race and I think I can do well in it. “I’ve been training almost every morning and afternoon since last year, including during December, to prepare for this meet.

“In the morning, most of our trainings involve strength conditioning, endurance and core workout in the gym, while in the afternoon I do a lot of track training. “Hopefully all this hard work will pay off,” he added when met during training at the Balapan Track and Field of the Hassanal Bolkiah National Sports Complex in Berakas.

Md Fakhri is also preparing for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games which is set to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from Aug 5-21. He broke the national 100m record when he ran 10.59s in the heats during the Singapore’s Southeast Asian (SEA) Games last June. Md Fakhri created another piece of history when he became the first Bruneian to ever qualify for the heats of the 100m event at a world meet after he finished his preliminary round race with a time of 10.73s at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing last August.

During the heats, Md Fakhri - who was running alongside Jamaica’s six-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt - finished with a time of 10.72s. The 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships will be the second time the biennial event is to be held in the USA since the inaugural competition in Indianapolis in 1987. According to the event’s website, 600 of the world’s best track and field athletes from 200 countries will compete in the four-day event at the Oregon Convention Center from March 17-20.

Md Fakhri is scheduled to compete in the 60m heats on March 18. According to a previous report in The Brunei Times, Md Fakhri broke into the national team when he beat a national runner in the 200m during the 2012 Inter-Ministry Sports Festival.

Md Fakhri won the 200m race at the Borneo Games in Labuan with a time of 22.23s in 2013. He is also the holder of the old 100m national record of 10.61s which he set at the Perak Open Athletics Championships in May.

Courtesy from Brunei Times