Thailand athlete becomes first Southeast Asian to run 100m under 10 seconds

Puripol Boonson celebrates after setting a new men's 100m record of Southeast Asia at the 33rd SEA Games in Bangkok on Dec. 11, 2025. Photo by VnExpress/Duc Dong

The 19-year-old clocked a stunning 9.94 seconds during the qualifying round of the SEA Games 33 on Thursday.

Competing on the opening day of SEA Games athletics at Bangkok's Suphachalasai Stadium, Boonson dominated the first heat. He exploded out of the blocks, quickly seizing the lead and maintaining his pace through the finish line. According to organizers, the run was achieved with a legal wind speed of 0.7 mps.

The performance broke the long-standing SEA Games record of 10.17 seconds, set by Indonesia's Suryo Agung Wibowo in 2009. It also surpassed Boonson’s personal best of 10.06 seconds, set at the 2023 Asian Games.

Boonson’s feat places him among a rare tier of Asian sprinters who have conquered the 10-second mark. He joins the likes of Asian record holder Su Bingtian of China (9.83 seconds) and Japanese standouts Ryota Yamagata, Chani Brown Abdul Hakim, Yoshihide Kiryu and Yuki Koike.

Prior to this breakthrough, the closest any Southeast Asian athlete had come to the sub-10 mark was Boonson himself. Since the Games began in 1959, the region has waited decades for a sprinter to redefine the limits of the event.

Boonson has long been touted as Asia’s next great sprint star. He burst onto the scene at the 31st SEA Games in Hanoi, winning a hat-trick of gold medals in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m events at just 16 years old.

In 2022, he set Asian U18 and U20 records with a time of 20.19 seconds in the 200m, ranking him third globally among juniors behind only Erriyon Knighton and Usain Bolt. He continued his rise in 2023 by winning gold in the 4x100m at the Asian Championships and silver in the 100m at the Asian Games.

Injury forced him to miss the 100m event at the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia in the same year, where compatriot Soraoat Dabbang won gold with 10.37s, Boonson bounced back stronger.

The following year, he reached the semi-finals of the Paris Olympics with a time of 10.14 seconds and made history as the first Thai athlete to win a medal at the World U20 Championships, taking silver in the 100m and bronze in the relay. His momentum carried into 2025, where he secured silver medals at the World University Games and a semi-final finish at the Asian Championships.

Following his historic 100m performance, Puripol is set to compete in two more events: the men's 200m and the 4x100m relay, where Thailand will look to assert its dominance.

The athletics event at the 33rd SEA Games runs from Dec. 11 to 16, featuring 339 athletes from nine countries competing for 47 gold medals. Host nation Thailand has fielded the largest squad with 80 athletes, aiming to top the athletics medal table with a target of at least 17 golds.