Kuala lumpur: National shot putter Jonah Chang Rigan, who clinched the gold medal at the 2026 Higher Education Institutions Sports Games (SUKIPT) here today, aims to break his own national record of 19.12 metres (m) again by the end of this year at the latest.

According to BERNAMA News Agency, the 23-year-old Sarawakian hurled the shot put to a distance of 18.22m, surpassing the previous SUKIPT mark of 16.33 set by Adi Alifuddin Hussin. Jonah had already broken his national record twice this year, recording distances of 18.81m at the Asian Throws Championships in South Korea in May and 19.12m at the XXXV Qosanov Memorial Athletics Championships in Kazakhstan in July.

Jonah identified the Sept 19-Oct 4 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan and the Dec 10-19 Southeast Asian University Games (AUG) in Malaysia as target platforms where he hopes to achieve a longer throw and rewrite the national record. He expressed his desire to break the national record at these events because they offer better competition and a different atmosphere compared to SUKIPT.

Representing Universiti Malaya (UM), Jonah was ahead of his SUKIPT challengers, with Nathaniel Majid from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) taking silver with a throw of 14.79m, and Kamal Farhan A. Rahman from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) settling for bronze with a throw of 14.44m.

Reflecting on his performance, Jonah shared that he was satisfied with his throw, despite not having fully recovered from an injury to his left ankle. He acknowledged that he did not set high expectations due to his injury but was pleased to achieve an 18-metre throw today.