SINGAPORE - National track and field athlete Ang Chen Xiang re-wrote his own national record in the men's 110m hurdles event at the Thailand Open on Monday, improving on his own previous mark by an impressive 0.19 seconds.

The 23-year-old, whose previous record stood at 14.38sec - set at the SEA Games on home soil in 2015 - clocked 14.19sec as he finished sixth in the event, against some of the continent's best, such as 2014 Asian Games silver and bronze medallists Kim Byung Jun of South Korea and Thailand's Jamras Rittidet.

Said Ang: "This is of tremendous significance to me, as I took a gap year in my final year of NUS medical school to pursue my athletic endeavours, and the decision is beginning to bear fruit."

The top three finishers in the event all went below 14sec, with Kim clocking 13.39sec to set a new South Korean national record.

Jamras finished in second with 13.88sec while Filipino Patrick Ma Unso was third with 13.91sec, also a new national record.

While Ang's new best still falls short of a podium finish based on the 2015 SEA Games result, where the third-place finisher clocked 14.12sec, his new time puts him well within the 97 per cent of the third-place result required by Singapore Athletics to be considered in the final team.

He was also included in the provisional list of athletes selected by the Singapore National Olympic Council for the Kuala Lumpur Games in August when selection was conducted in April.