Malaysia defended their men's 4x100m relay silver medal at the 2021 SEA Games in Vietnam, setting a new national record at the same time.

The national quartet of Zulfiqar Ismail, Arsyad Saat, Azeem Fahmi and Haiqal Hanafi clocked 39.09s to finish behind Thailand (38.58s) and ahead of Singapore (39.44s) at the My Dinh National Stadium.

Their time beat the previous record of 39.27s, which was set by Haiqal, Jonathan Nyepa, Badrul Hisham Abdul Manap and Nixson Kennedy in the 2017 edition in Kuala Lumpur as they narrowly missed out on a podium finish back then.

There was also a medal finish for the women's 4x100m relay team as Nor Sarah Adi, S. Komalam Shally, Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli dan Azreen Nabila Alias clinched a bronze medal.

They recorded 45.32s behind Thailand (44.39s) and Vietnam (45.25s).

It was Sarah's second medal as earlier in the day, she showed off her multi-sport talent and won gold in the women's pole vault event.

The event, which was last won by Malaysia in 2011 through Roslinda Samsu, saw the 22-year-old make a 4.00m attempt to outjump Thailand's Conthicha Khabut (3.80m) and the Philippines' Alyana Joyce Nicholas Martinez (3.60m).

On the same action-packed day, there was almost another gold medal for Malaysia as discus thrower Queenie Ting was narrowly beaten in the women's event.

She set a new national record of 52.36m, which was just 0.73m behind winner Subenrat Insaeng of Thailand to settle for a silver medal.