Thailand’s sprint sensation, 16-year-old Puripol Boonson, has been named by the World Athletics as the Number One 100-metre sprinter in the Under-18 age group, with a record of 10.09 seconds, set at the 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships held in Colombia last Tuesday (August 2nd), according to the World Athletics website.
The previous record of 10.15 seconds was held by American sprinter Anthony Schwartz since 2017.
Puripol also set a national record of 20.19 seconds in the 200-metre sprint in Kazakhstan on June 27th. Despite joining the SEA Games for the first time in Hanoi in May, he won three golds.
The Athletics Association of Thailand said that an American coach might be hired to train Puripol and other promising Thai athletes, so that they can perform even better.
An online campaign has been launched, via change.org, calling on Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt to provide financial support to Puripol, so he can be trained abroad by international coaches, alongside other world-class athletes. The campaign has been signed up to by more than 600 people in just two days.
The campaigner claimed that being trained abroad will offer athletes like Puripol a chance to improve their performance more effectively than hiring a foreign coach to train him here.
