Karunakarer Selvaratnam was one such exceptional athlete, who made a name for himself in a variety of sports simultaneously.
He was active in competitive hockey, football, badminton and golf, a Malaysian captain in athletics and cricket, a champion national middle-distance runner, represented the Navy in four different sports – and was also a champion boxer.
He was a waterboy for the school team who would go on to run at the Olympics.
Karu, as he is known, was exposed by chance to athletics and cricket and became a double international.
For most people, middle-distance running and boxing could not be more different. For Karu, it was a seemingly easy pivot from blazing the track to combat sport.
Karu is a marvel in Malaysian sports, an awe-inspiring multi-sports star.
He is the only man to be made the national captain of athletics and cricket. And he was the Malaysian athletics champion over the 400m and the 400m hurdles from 1961 to 1965.
His national record of 52.7s in the hurdles stood for almost 25 years until Anto Kenny Martin broke it by two-tenths of a second at the MAAU meet in 1989.
At 19, Karu was first selected to play cricket for Malaya in 1960 against Singapore. As a schoolboy a year earlier, he broke the national record in the 440 yards hurdles held by K Laxman at the first Malayan Combined Schools’ Athletics Championships at the City Stadium in Penang.
Today, at the age of 80, his appetite for sports has not waned.
“In all my years of running, I was always in front, never knew what was behind me,” mused Karu. “Now, I relax and enjoy my golf and follow sports closely.”
Karu picked up golf in 1976 and was a single handicapper at his peak. He now plays social golf.
In an interview with FMT, Karu’s mind raced back to a time of exhausting training schedules, memorable victories, missed milestones, heartbreaking failures and comebacks.
Let’s start with the most unfathomable of his talents: boxing. In 1963, three years after joining the navy as a marine engineering apprentice, he became the bantamweight (53.5kg) champion.
That was a monumental feat considering he was already representing the Armed Forces from 1961-1973 in athletics, cricket, hockey and badminton.
Not impressed yet?
There were two phases in his athletics and cricket careers.
He made a comeback to athletics eight years after he quit track in 1965 at the age of 24 following the SEAP Games in Kuala Lumpur to attend an officer’s course at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, UK. He served in the Navy until he retired with the rank of lieutenant commander.
“Due to some influence from the top brass, I made a comeback in 1973 for the SEAP Games in Singapore at the age of 32 and in the last race of my career, I got the silver medal in the 400m hurdles.
“The Games remain special to me as I was the Malaysian contingent captain, an honour which I cherish to this day,” said Karu.
He suffered his first frustration when he lost his place in the 1960 Rome Olympics team because the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) did not have sufficient funds to send a fourth athlete.
“It was one of the saddest moments of my young life but the setback motivated me to work harder for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo where I ran the 400m hurdles and 4x400m relay,” said Karu.
He made his international debut at the 1961 SEAP Games in Rangoon where he won the gold medal in the 400m hurdles.
A year later, he snatched the bronze medal in the 400m hurdles and a silver in the 4x400m relay with Rahim Ahmad, Asir Victor and M Jegathesan at the 1962 Asiad in Jakarta.
That same year, he gained more experience over both the events at the British Empire Games in Perth, Australia.
Karu never defended his 400m hurdles win at the biennial SEAP Games as the 1963 event was cancelled due to the political instability in the host country, Cambodia.
In Kuala Lumpur in 1965, he did not finish while at the 1973 Games in Singapore, he knocked the last hurdle, resulting in a Thai winning the gold medal. However, he was in the gold-winning 4×400 quartet with Asir, Jegathesan and A S Nathan.
Karu quit cricket also in 1965 after representing Malaya and Malaysia for five years in Inter-Port matches against Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as visiting foreign teams.
A right arm off-spinner, he was ambidextrous, using both arms for bowling and throwing, returning in 1978 to represent Malaysia after an eight-year layoff at the competitive level.
A year later, he was selected for the ICC Trophy in the UK but turned down the selection due to personal reasons.
Karu captained Malaysia in 1980 against Hong Kong but had to relinquish the captaincy soon after as he had to attend a sports facility and management course in Australia.
He also played in the annual Saudara Cup series between Malaysia and Singapore from 1978 and made the Malaysian team for the ICC Trophy, also in the UK in 1982, the year he retired from international cricket at the age of 41.
More accolades: He represented four states and Kuala Lumpur in various sports – Perak (1957-1965 and 1981-1987, athletics and cricket); Johor (1966-1974, athletics and cricket); Sabah (1975-1977, cricket); Kuala Lumpur (1978-1980 and 1988-1992, cricket); Armed Forces (1961-1973, athletics, cricket, hockey, badminton).
Batu Gajah-born Karu said the first sport he took up was badminton as a five-year-old in Malim Nawar, Perak, followed by cricket when he went to Ceylon from 1951- 1955.
Cricket ran in the family: his father, Ponniah Karunakarer, was a school cricketer for St. Joseph’s College in Colombo, Ceylon, while two of his three sons played for Malaysia and one of them, Rohan, was also the national captain.
Karu’s first taste of formal athletics competition came in 1955 when he was a waterboy during the Anglo-Chinese School, Ipoh, sports meet.
He was happy mixing and distributing drinks and carrying track and field equipment when his destiny beckoned.
The Tagore House was looking for someone to replace an injured regular runner in the 4×400 yards relay. A teacher, Rasa Durai, gave Karu a pair of shorts and the house vest and asked him to run.
“I was stunned. Rasa Durai told me to run two rounds around the 200m field track as the second runner and pass the baton to the next runner,” he said.
The lanky Karu flew and gave his team a five-yard lead. Tagore House won the race and he got his first athletics medal.
The next thing Karu knew, he was in the school track and field team, also doing the long jump.
Karu took up hurdling, also by chance. An American coach, Tom Rosandich, who was talent scouting for hurdlers picked him because he was a long jumper.
He set high standards for himself and was motivated by the likes of the legendary American athlete, Jesse Owens, who visited his school in 1956.
“Jessie Owens gave us a motivational talk and I was driven by his inspirational talk about working hard, self-discipline and believing in yourself. I worked hard and slowly made progress year by year,” Karu said.
Karu recalled that back in the day, national meets were run over two days and team managers made athletes run several events to score points for the state to win the championships.
“I had to run six to seven races of 400m in the two days. In the 400m hurdles, there were the heats and final, in the 400m flat, there were the heats, semi-finals and final and in the 4x 400m relay, the heats and final.
“The pain athletes went through was unbearable but we persevered to deliver outstanding performances,” he said.
Will he do it all over again? “Yes, but I will be a bit smarter,” said Karu who has held numerous coaching, managerial and administrative positions in sports bodies including being president of the Malaysian Olympians Association.
While Karu was inducted into the OCM’s Hall of Fame for his contributions to athletics and cricket, his story deserves to be valued, preserved and promoted.
He has made a unique contribution to shaping Malaysian sports and no historian of the country’s achievements could fail to take account of his feats.
In official recognition of that contribution, sportspeople like him should be showered state and public honours as we will never see the likes of Karu again.