Choong, the sprint queen of the 1950s, died in her sleep at a retirement home on Jalan Gasing here at 7.30pm last night. She was 90.

Her niece Alice Choong Wai Ling said her aunt passed away after an “extremely brave” two-year battle with dementia, during which she was bedridden.

She said while Annie was not able to express herself in the period leading up to her death, she had asked to see some of her fellow Olympians, including sprint legend M Jegathesan.

Jegathesan said he visited her two weeks ago, but Annie could not recognise him.

“As a young boy admiring my brother Harichandra’s achievements in athletics, I was also taken up by Annie’s feats in track and field,” he said.

As a 22-year-old, Annie was the only woman athlete among the 32 competitors when Malaya made its Olympics debut in Melbourne in 1956.

She competed in the 100m sprint on merit and was eliminated in the heats, clocking 12.73 seconds to finish fourth.

The men in the athletics squad were Harichandra (800m), Lee Kah Fook (100m and 200m), Raja Azlam Ngah Ali (100m), Sinnayah Karuppiah Jarabalan (100m), Abdul Rahim Ahmad (400m) and Kenneth Perera (400m and 800m).

Great athlete, greater woman

Even though Annie exited in the heats at the Melbourne Olympics, the impact she had on women’s sports in Malaysia was noteworthy.

Stirred by Annie’s performance, women began to slowly embrace athletics.

The country’s participation at the Rome Olympics four years later saw only nine male competitors due to insufficient funds, but four of the 62 athletes in Tokyo in 1964 were women.

At the Tokyo Games, the only time when Singaporeans marched as Malaysians, M Rajamani (400m) and swimmers Jovina Tseng, Marny Jolly and Molly Tay continued to make a positive impact on women in sports.

Rajamani’s 57.8 seconds over the distance was commendable as until 1960, women were banned from running distances over 200m in the Olympics.

That was because the International Olympic Council held that a woman’s body could not cope with the strain of long-distance races.

Sixty-nine years ago, when Annie was running the 100 yards and 200 yards and doing the long and high jumps, women were not encouraged to participate in sports.

In a wider social context, she could perhaps be appreciated as a representative of the then tangled struggles of women in sport.

She was a rare athlete in an era when women the likes of her were not readily accepted in the male-dominated sporting world.

Her plight – financial troubles, no government support and gender bias – would have made many current athletes give up sports.

Annie’s father bought her spikes and attire and a bicycle for her to ride from her home in Kampung Baru to her office in Ampang, and to Cheras for training.

In an interview with FMT in 2020, she said she juggled her time between work as a clerk and training, and had trained seven days a week under Lim Thye Hee and Lee Fun, her coaches for the sprints and long jump respectively.

She said the toughest thing for her and the other Melbourne-bound athletes was finding money to pay their way to the Games.

As the government provided no financial support, they had to raise money themselves, mostly through door-to-door donations.

She said shop owners along Batu Road in Kuala Lumpur (now Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman) gave generously, between $5 and $100, “perhaps telling themselves I was representing all the girls here at the Olympics”.

In Melbourne, they got $5 as daily allowance but the incentive they looked forward to was hearing the national anthem being played.

“Malaysia did not win any medals at the Games but representing the nation has remained my biggest joy.

“I took part for the glory of the nation without thinking of any self-benefit,” said Annie.

She also represented Malaya at the 1954 Asian Games in Manila (long jump and 4x100m relay) and in the third edition of the Asian Games four years later in Tokyo (100m and 200m).

At the Tokyo Asiad, she qualified for the 100m final and finished 6th with a time of 12.9s.

Another memorable moment for her was when she met legendary American athlete Jesse Owens who visited Malaya in 1956.

Owens won four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m and long jump at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

In 1954, Annie set the national record of 5.33m in the women’s long jump.

Annie switched briefly to motor racing after her retirement from athletics in 1960. She later ran a shoe store at the Pertama Complex in Kuala Lumpur.

In 2017, she was inducted into the Olympic Council of Malaysia’s Hall of Fame.

Until the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Annie kept fit by exercising with other senior citizens in Kelana Jaya, where she lived.

She devoted much of her time to church work but a series of falls and loss of memory saw the need for her to be placed under the supervision of caregivers.

The wake for Annie will be held tomorrow from 4pm at the Petaling Jaya Evangelical Free Church, The Chapel, Basement@ Heritage Centre, 3, Jalan 13/6, Petaling Jaya.

The funeral service will be on Tuesday followed by the cremation at Gui Yuan Crematorium, Jalan 229, Section 51A, Petaling Jaya.