Athletics sealed a double victory in 1973 when high-jump supremo Noor Azhar Hamid won the Sportsman of the Year award the very same year athletics coach Patrick Zehnder won the Coach of the Year award.

At the age of 18 years, Noor Azhar made his debut in the national team at the 1967 SEAP Games in Bangkok. He announced his arrival with a bronze medal win after clearing the bar at 1.91m. That same year, he equalled Lloyd Valberg's 20 year-old high jump record (1.92m, 1947) at the Singapore versus Combined Services meet.

The following year at the Malaysian Open ('68) he eclipsed Lloyd Valberg's 22 year-old high jump record with a height of 1.99m. A year later, at the 1969 SEAP Games in Rangoon (Burma), he snatched gold after clearing the bar at 1.94m.

In his prime years (1969 to 1975) at the high jump, Noor Azhar raised the national high-jump record bar from 1.92m to a dizzying 2.12m.

During the Olympics year in 1972, Noor Azhar was consistently jumping 2.08m. He was, however, unable to hit the heights he was accustomed to at the international meets. His best ever clearance was 2.15m which was, unfortunately, achieved during preparations for the Commonwealth Games in 1974, and so was never listed as a national record.

Noor found it difficult to replicate his mercurial jumps when it mattered most - at international tournaments like the Asian and Commonwealth Games; at the '74 Asian Games (Tehran), Noor missed-out on the medals after he came in 4th with a jump of 2.08m. His high-jump feats were stellar but at the higher levels, he fell just short of the records he was able to set while at training (and at the lesser meets).

In 1973, prior to the SEAP Games competition, Noor re-wrote the national record with a jump of 2.08m at the SAAA All-comers meet. It was at the SEA Games 1973 (Singapore) that he then set his record-breaking jump of 2.12m, setting an Asian record then that remained a local benchmark for 22 years; it also earned Nor his second SEA Games gold medal in the process.

Noor Azhar went on to represent Singapore in a total of nine consecutive SEAP/SEA Games from '67 to '81. In all he earned 3 golds, a silver and two bronzes.

What set the lean and wiry Noor apart from his contemporaries, aside from his continually "raising the bar", was the fact that he had a good spring in his jump, the propulsion from which (he himself attests) gave him the advantage that he held over others in the field.

The bemedalled Noor also fervently stuck to his preferred straddle-jump technique throughout - even when the popular Fosbury Flop method became the style of choice for other high-jumpers during the period. Noor steadfastly believed that the traditional straddle-jump technique of high-jumping was the better way for him to go, and that he could achieve better records with it.

At the end of it all, the jump which stood out amongst all Noor's others was his 1973 SEA Games record-breaking height of 2.12m. It was that leap that etched his name into the local record books, ultimately rewarding him with the Sportsman of the Year award for 1973.