Poh Seng Song
Singaporean sprinter (born 1983)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Poh Seng Song (born 30 January 1983)[1] is an athlete from Singapore who specialises in the 100 metres sprint and 4 x 100 metres relay.
Poh Seng Song (right) in 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National team | Singapore | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 30 January 1983 (age 43) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Dipna Lim Prasad | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Education
Poh studied at Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) (ACS(I)).[2] As of December 2005, he is an undergraduate at the Singapore Management University.
Career
In 1997, Poh broke Singapore's Schools' National 100-metre race record set by Ridzuan Rahim in 1995 with 11.68sec, 0.16sec faster, during the sixth Western Australia, Singapore and Malaysia Schools' International Track and Field Championships.[2] The record was not recognised in Singapore.[2]
Poh also played rugby for ACS(I) as a winger,[3] winning the National Schools 'C' title in 1997 and National Schools 'B' titles twice in 1998 and 1999.[1][3] He also won the National Youth League Under-14 title with Blacks RFC.[1]
In 1999, Poh represented Singapore at the Philippine Open in the men's 4x100-metre event.[4] The team won the silver medal behind Malaysia.[4] The result was affected by a poor baton change between starter Tan Wei Leong and second runner Poh.[4] Poh finished fourth in the men's 200m event.[5]
Poh, alongside with Aaron Huang, Yusof Alias and U.K. Shyam, was set to be sent to the 1999 SEA Games, held at Brunei, for the men's 4x100-metre event, pending achieving qualification results.[6] A time trial was set up for the team to qualify but due to an injury and an illness to two team members before a time trial, the trial was postponed.[7] The team failed to participate at the Selangor Open due to an injury to Shyam.[8] A special time trial was set up to replace the previous time trial at the annual inter-club championships which they failed to complete all the three attempts due to unsuccessful baton changes.[8][9]
Participating in the 2004 Summer Olympics, Poh achieved seventh place in his 100 metres heat, thus missing out on a placing in Round 2 of the event.
In 2009, Poh started working for Singapore Airlines as a pilot.[10]
Poh was Singapore Athletics' (SA) vice-president (finance & partnerships). On 18 March 2020, Poh and SA's athletes' commission representative Gary Yeo, who was recommended by Poh, resigned from the management committee of SA.[11] Both resignations were rejected by SA's management committee.[12] The management committee then banned Poh from holding any office within the jurisdiction of the association and/or its affiliates for two terms, based on the findings of a board of inquiry (BOI) on an incident of a WhatsApp chat leak.[13] The management committee had "unanimously agreed" with the findings of the BOI which allegedly concluded Poh was the one who leaked a message. Poh denied he was the one who leaked the message and he was not the whistleblower in an internal dispute.[14]
Poh then applied for a judicial review in the High Court of Singapore against SA, appealing against the BOI findings and requested for an open appeal hearing.[15] On 17 September, Poh and the management committee, withdrew his application for judicial review and the ban on Poh, respectively following a mediation session.[15] It remained unconfirmed whether did Poh leak the message.[15]
In 2020, Poh was appointed as athletes' commission representative in SA.[16]
Personal life
Poh married his girlfriend of six years, and fellow runner, Dipna Lim Prasad in 2014. They have two children together.[17]
