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41: In the absence of defending champion Mok Ying Ren, Soh Rui Yong will be tasked to lead Singapore’s charge for the men’s marathon gold. Soh broke the 41-year-old 10,000m record last June with 31:15.95. The 23-year-old (left) qualified for the SEA Games by posting 2hr 26min 01sec at the California International Marathon last December, the second-best performance by any Singaporean runner. It is bettered only by the national record of 2:24.22 by M Rameshon at the Chiangmai SEA Games in 1995. Mok, who clocked 2:28:36 to win Singapore’s first SEA Games marathon gold for 30 years in Myanmar in 2013, will not defend his title after deciding he could not recover in time to qualify for June’s Games. To prepare for his tilt at gold, Soh spent a month in Flagstaff, Arizona, which is almost 2,133m above sea level and an ideal base for highaltitude endurance training.