00:00We never knew that my mom was a sprinter or an athlete or anything like that.
00:13When I found out that my mom was an Olympian in the 1956 Olympics, no way, we couldn't
00:21imagine that.
00:30Maybe I'm an inborn athlete, I think, because I had that thing in me, you see.
00:40But I went through a very, very hard time.
00:44If she was running today, she would be the equivalent of Shanti.
00:51Shanti is not the first female sprinter to come to the Olympics.
00:54We have Tan Kwee Hua and Mary Klass and Janet Jesudarson.
01:00Mary Beatrice Klass was born into a large Catholic Eurasian family in Singapore in 1935.
01:10This meant that she lived through a tumultuous time.
01:141935 was when the world was coming close to World War II.
01:21In the Japanese occupation, my mom would have been around nine or ten.
01:30My grandfather had to protect them.
01:33They were very afraid of the Japanese.
01:35That's where he got his protective spirit from.
01:39They grew up in this place called Rangoon Road.
01:43And Rangoon Road is where there were a number of clubs that were situated there with huge
01:49fields.
01:50And there was a kampung spirit among the people that lived there.
01:56So she was used to open spaces and running around.
02:02I guess when you have six other siblings and you're right in the middle, sometimes you
02:10have to stand out.
02:12I remember her telling me this, that she picked up the newspaper and she looked at the newspaper
02:19and she saw that this particular young girl, Pei Hua, which was actually the first female
02:27Olympian to go to Helsinki.
02:30And she said, if this girl could do it, why couldn't I?
02:37And I think it became a very personal thing for Mary because eventually she would run
02:43against Pui Hua.
02:46I used to go to school, I used to see the boys there, go there and run.
02:50And one day, Mr D'Souza, he came up to me, he says, are you interested in running?
02:58I said, yeah.
02:59Then he says, why not join a club?
03:03In the late 1990s, I was a member of the Women in Sport Working Group.
03:09It was a relative rarity for girls and women during the 50s and 60s and even later on to
03:16excel at an elite level.
03:19Once the war was over and the school system kicked into operation very quickly, providing
03:25opportunities for them to compete, sport is one of the platforms that you look at to say
03:32we are at peace, we are developing, things are moving on.
03:36There is competition, but it's no longer about trying to beat the hell out of somebody else.
03:45So the Singapore government created an environment where sport could develop.
03:50But there were some interesting people who were good to rival Mary.
03:54Eleanor Ross was one, Gloria Beck was another.
03:59The rivalry was at times quite acute.
04:03She entered a couple of races, she beat some of the well-known runners in that race.
04:11And in 1953, she even beat Pui Wah, her idol, in the Singapore Amateur Athletic Association
04:18100 Yards Championship in an unexpected upset.
04:25Right up to, she was still 20, up to 80, she was leading.
04:32From that day, she gave up, she didn't want to run anymore.
04:37She speaks so strongly, even today, about Pui Wah as being the target, the one that
04:44she wanted to be.
04:46And then to beat her, you have to add new targets.
04:50But her entire running career may have never happened if she had listened to her father.
04:56It was just after the war.
04:59Money was very, very difficult.
05:01Everybody was struggling.
05:03When she beat all those top runners, she came back with a certificate and a cup.
05:09And her father said,
05:10What's all this rubbish?
05:13What are you doing?
05:14You know, he said,
05:16This is all rubbish.
05:19Can you imagine the disappointment after achieving something that you thought
05:25was great?
05:27I was thinking, one day, you know, something will happen and you will know my true colours.
05:35I stopped school because I had to help my mother.
05:39I used to do all my housework and then I go and train.
05:42I used to wake up at 5.30 and then to go and do all the exercises, running in the field.
05:48And then come back, then in the evening I go again at 5.
05:52I leave my home, I will take the bus and I will go to Raffles.
05:56So that's where I meet the schoolboys or whoever.
05:59You know, just they are running, I just go and run with them.
06:03After a while, the girls didn't provide any competition.
06:07So she decided to run against the men.
06:10Once it was established that she was very, very good,
06:13she was given a pair of spikes by Choo Seng Kwee,
06:16the football manager of Singapore, Uncle Choo.
06:21Mary didn't really need much in terms of the technology.
06:26What she needed was knowledgeable support from coaches,
06:32people who could reinforce her feeling that she was doing something worthwhile.
06:38My mother was a very sickly woman.
06:45She suffered from TB for many years, right?
06:47And my mother lived 17 years with one lung.
06:51If my mother, a sickly woman, can go through a life like that, why can't I?
06:58I want to make a name for myself and I want to make a name for Singapore.
07:04At 18, a determined Mary qualified for the 1954 Asian Games in Manila.
07:11It was the largest multi-sports event in the world, second only to the Olympics.
07:17The Asian Games episode in 1954,
07:22I think was particularly crucial in shaping her personality.
07:27Her mum sewed her flannel.
07:31She ran with spikes, which the cobbler actually knocked nails in them.
07:36So many nations and then, wow, I'm here, how come I'm here, this sort of thing.
07:41And then when I was training, a Japanese fellow was watching me running.
07:47The final that she ran in featured a Japanese runner, Atsuko Dambu.
07:57This was the main rival.
08:01In the finals, it was actually a dead heat.
08:06There was no technology at that time.
08:08They couldn't differentiate between the first and the second.
08:13The description of the race indicates that she was moving faster than Dambu at the end.
08:20And so there was some question about the final positions.
08:24Some people said, oh, it was a tie.
08:27Mary was in a deadlock with her fellow runner at 12.5 seconds for first place.
08:33It would have been the best performance for a Singaporean in the Asian Games
08:38and the country's first gold.
08:41And somebody foolishly said, well, Mary will always have another chance to win the gold medal.
08:46So we're going to award it to the Japanese runner.
08:51It took 70 years before a Singaporean finally had a female sprinter
09:00to win the Asian Games silver medal in the 100.
09:05Only a silver medal, I think, was a little bit of an injection into determination on her part.
09:13She is a determined lady.
09:15She wants history to be written in the right sort of way.
09:19Mary smashed records again and again in the 100-yard and 220-yard sprints
09:25at the Amateur Athletics Association Championships in 1955 and 1956.
09:32These wins led the 21-year-old onto the biggest stage of the world.
09:37So Melbourne was the first Olympic Games in the Southern Hemisphere.
09:41What the automatic consequence of that was,
09:45it was going to be cheaper for Singapore to send a team to the Olympic Games.
09:50It's the pinnacle, it's the ultimate competition for human beings.
09:55Singapore sent its largest contingent ever.
10:00It has never sent as many as 40, all of them male.
10:05The only women, Mary and Janet, in track and field.
10:10I was overjoyed because just imagine Asian Games to the Olympics.
10:16When we were doing the March Pass in night,
10:18you see, so Janet and myself, of course, in front.
10:22And then I felt, wow.
10:24I felt great because I was a small person against the big people, you know.
10:29And yet, I went through that tremendous joy, you cannot describe, you know.
10:36Imagine just a simple Singaporean girl with not much education,
10:43get to travel, competing with the world's best.
10:48Against the stiff international competition,
10:51she broke yet another Malayan record for the 200-metre heat.
10:55But...
10:56She didn't get past the first heat.
10:59But I think we don't, or I certainly don't tend to emphasise that at all.
11:05The fact that you're an Olympian,
11:07that you're in the race against Shirley Strickland,
11:10who's an Australian who I think subsequently won the gold medal.
11:13So, in relative terms, she really did very, very well.
11:18I think if you grew up in the 1950s,
11:21the only heroes you would have in and around were the sporting heroes.
11:30And my mum was a champion runner.
11:33They used to have a lot of people fill the stands and cheer for her.
11:40I had the public to see me run.
11:44I was a little bit disappointed because, you know,
11:49none of my family saw me run until I retired.
11:54At the young age of 22, Mary retired.
11:59My one brother and six sisters, nobody saw me run, no.
12:05The only person who saw me run was my husband.
12:09My mother, right, would have been a real popular girl, right?
12:13Her face would have been splashed in the newspaper.
12:17But my mother married the boy next door.
12:20Literally, the boy next door.
12:22This is very symptomatic of a lot of young female athletes at the time.
12:28They were often persuaded,
12:31restrict your athletic career to your late teenage years,
12:36but then you must think about getting married and having children.
12:40We wondered really, you know,
12:42why didn't my mum tell us that she was a runner?
12:47Why didn't she tell us that she was an Olympian?
12:50I guess if I knew my mum well enough, right,
12:54she's always focused on the things that is directly in front of her,
12:59rather than behind her.
13:01And so, if being a wife, being a good wife,
13:06being a good mother, looking after four children
13:09and raising a family was a task at hand,
13:12then she was focused at that.
13:13Participating in sport is something intrinsically interesting.
13:20I don't think she got paid for anything that she was doing.
13:22In the Eurasian community,
13:24they often state, we do this for the sake of doing it,
13:28because we love doing it.
13:31They may not specifically impact on the wealth of the nation,
13:36but they are helping to shape the character of the nation.
13:41In 2016, Mary Klaas was inducted into the Singapore Women's Hall of Fame,
13:46earning her rightful spot in history.
13:48Yes, she achieved a lot,
13:52but I think that's one part of her life.
13:55My mum is so much more than a runner.
14:00The person that I've lived with all my life,
14:04the person who is kind, who is generous,
14:08the quote from St Paul to Timothy,
14:13I fought the good fight, I've completed the race,
14:17I've kept the faith.
14:22I think that describes my mother's life.
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