Mary Klass: Singapore's forgotten Olympian sprinter | On the Shoulders of Giants
Her father wanted her to stay at home to cook and clean, but Mary Klass had bigger dreams. Defying both her family and society, she would go on to become one of Singapore's fastest sprinters then.
Klass was never paid for her achievements, but relied on sheer determination to run from the Asian Games to the global stage of the Olympics, becoming Singapore's second-ever female Olympian
Watch more: https://www.asiaone.com/video
Klass was never paid for her achievements, but relied on sheer determination to run from the Asian Games to the global stage of the Olympics, becoming Singapore's second-ever female Olympian
Watch more: https://www.asiaone.com/video
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LifestyleTranscript
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.