Her national records in the 1500m, 3000m and 10000m have remained unbroken for about 30 years, showing the quality of the country’s past women endurance runners.

Jayanthi is also unofficially the fastest female half-marathoner, but she is not widely known.

At the recent SEA Games in Cambodia, Jayanthi made news when the two Malaysian men in the 10000m, Ikbolasen Kamal Hussain and S Poo Vasanthan, finished more than six seconds slower than her record.

“It’s great to be back in the news but I feel sorry for the boys who had previously run faster, but went into the competition with little track training,” she said.

Jayanthi, 55, said the back stories of the two runners, who broke out of a life of hardship in Raub, Pahang, showed sheer guts “and for that, they must get the best guidance to develop their talent”.

She expressed disappointment that there are hardly any women in competitive middle and long-distance track running in Malaysia.

It is hard to believe that such a time existed when one woman dominated distance running, and raised the stakes in Malaysian women’s thin distance running cupboard.

In 1993, Jayanthi demonstrated an incredible range, racing in 13 major long-distance track and road competitions, locally and abroad, over a period of four months.

Eight of those races were the 1500m, 3000m and 10000m, and while she may not have won some of the events, she heralded a new age for Malaysian women in the races in the 1990s.

Record-breaking appetite

Jayanthi set the 1500m, 3000m records in 1993, and sensationally broke her own 10000m mark in the same year, and again in the following year, all in championships overseas.

She said her achievements were due to the good competition at the meets compared to races locally which she won by huge margins, sometimes five minutes ahead of the runner-up in the 10000m.

She first broke her own 1500m national record at the India Open in New Delhi before smashing the 3000m and 10000m Malaysian marks at the world championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

About 10 months later, at age 26, she cracked her own 10000m record of 33:56.72, clocking 33:50.80 in Brussels, Belgium.

The 10000m accomplishment and her timings in the 1500m (4:23.49) and 3000m (9:18.42) are the longest-standing records in Malaysian women’s athletics.

Her 5000m national record which she set in 1992 stood for five years until it was bettered by Yuan Yufang at the SEA Games in Jakarta.

It was also in 1993 that she won two gold medals in the 3000m and 10000m and a bronze in the 1500m at the Singapore SEA Games. Two years earlier, she took gold in the 3000m at the games in Manila.

She never made the Olympics, but after her performance in Singapore, she became the first recipient of the Coca-Cola Olympian of the year award, the then annual prize for the best performers at a major international meet.

The recipient of the men’s award was another long-distance ace M Ramachandran, who won the 5000m and 10000m, breaking the games record in both the events.

Ramachandran’s national records in the 5000m (14:06.84) and 10000m (29:30.19) stand from 1994.

In the same year, Jayanthi won four 10km runs and a half-marathon locally and in Singapore, and her amazing runs encouraged many women to participate in road races.

Jayanthi said she was disappointed when her winning time of 1hr 16.25 in the Terengganu Bridge Run half-marathon was not recognised as a national record for some reason.

A year earlier, she had run the 21.1km bridge run in 1hr 17.01, but the national half-marathon record belongs to Sheela Samivelu who registered 1hr 24.44 in 2016 in Kuala Lumpur.

Beginnings in Cameron Highlands

Jayanthi, the daughter of Cameron Highlands vegetable farmers Palaniappan and Nallammal, was a champion school athlete at 12.

She won her first gold medal for Pahang in 1500m at the national schools meet in 1982, and went on to represent the state at the Malaysian Amateur Athletics Union (MAAU) championships.

At her first appearance in the Asean schools meet in 1984 in Phuket, Thailand, she won two gold medals in the 800m and 1500m, and repeated the feat two years later.

At 17, she was later taken to another level by then national middle and long-distance star S Muthiah, who had made Cameron Highlands his training base.

Muthiah, a former three-time SEA Games 1500m gold medallist, had then created the new national mark of 8:27.0 in the 3000m in London, another record stuck in time.

“He was at the right place, and right time, and I benefited greatly from his training in a conducive environment for distance running in Cameron Highlands,” she said.

Apart from the SEA Games, Jayanthi went on to take part in the Asian Games in Japan and the Commonwealth Games in Canada, both in 1994, and in the Asian athletics championships the previous year.

Before Jayanthi, there was another Cameron Highlands-born 1500m runner, R Yamunah, who took silver at the 1973 and 1975 SEAP Games (now SEA Games).

Jayanthi said endurance athletes should train in Cameron Highlands because of a variety of things like altitude, the ability to run faster, and training culture.

The super athlete, who holds degrees in sports science and business management, quit athletics before 2000 to focus on her career in Maybank.