National sprinter Calvin Kang continued to show consistency in his preparations for next month's IAAF World Junior Championships when he clocked 10.60sec to finish fourth in Men's U-20 100m at the Bauhaus Junioren Gala 2008 meet in Mannheim, Germany on Saturday.
The 18-year-old Singapore Sports School graduate – who cracked his own national junior record last week with his 10.53sec-timing at the 13th Asian Junior Athletics Championships, qualified for the event finale in Mannheim – after clearing his heat at a canter in 10.80sec.
Germany's Henrig Robert won the blue riband event in 10.47sec while Swiss lad Pascal Mancini ( 10.51sec ) and Sweden's Benjamin Olsson (10.57 sec ) fnished second and third respectively.
Calvin and schoolmate Stefan Tseng are currently in Frankfurt, Germany, on a Singapore Athletics Association-sponsored month-long training stint with their coaches Alfred Sim and Valeri Obidko. It is part of their final preparations for the World Juniors which will be held in Bydgoszcz, Poland from 8-13 July.
The Bahuas Junioren Gala 2008 meet is one of two warm-up competitions that they will be taking part in prior to the Championships. The other is a meet in Berlin from 1-2 July.
However, while Calvin continued to maintain his form, national triple jump record holder Stefan Tseng had a painful outing at Mannheim despite finishing second in the Men's U-20 triple jump at the Mannhem meet.
The 18-year-old, who set a new national record of 15.78m at the Asian Juniors, was not able to shrug off a persistent pain in his ankle and this affected his ability to take off. He only completed three of his six jumps, registering 15.20m, 13.69m and 15.10m. Even then, his 15.20m effort, considered poor by his own standards, was good enough to take the silver.
Germany's Manuel Ziegler won the event with an distance of 15.23m.
Here's wishing Stefan a speedy recovery from whatever problems he may be experiencing in his ankle.