17 December 2002

Give Malaysia five

MALAYSIA are within striking distance of achieving the five-gold target after three of the country's silat olahraga exponents triumphed in the 12th World Silat championships at Penang International Sports Arena in Relau yesterday. And that's excluding the women who made it to the trios and doubles silat seni finals on Thursday. The man who gave the Malaysian supporters the early cheers was Alwie Jidin when he kicked out England's Arash Adami 4-1 in Class F.

Ahmad Sharil Zailudin then sent Vietnamese Nguyen Xuang Hung crashing 4-1 in Class D. Mohd Amin Saadon wrapped it up for the host country when he defeated Holland's European champion Jan van Houten 4-1. The trios' achievement and that of their three other fellow exponents who made it to the semifinals on the opening day on Sunday, saw Malaysia having a total of six exponents in the semifinals. The only Malaysian who failed to advance to the last four was 2001 SEA Games gold medallist Ismail Darul.

Ismail lost 0-5 to Vietnam's Le Ba Truang in Class C. Those who qualified on Sunday were Mohd Azrin Abdul Malik, the recent national champion, and Emy Latif and Jurida Hussein in the women's category. Mohd Azrin of Pahang defeated Indonesia's Sigit Infantoro 5-0 in the men's Class I. Emy then beat Indonesia's Puspa Endah 5-0 in Class D and Jurida, the Class A national champion, knocked out Japanese Akiko Asami 5-0. The combination of Rina Juliana, Helena Nama and Norshaniza Azizan came out second to Vietnam in Pool B in the women's trios. In the doubles, Shalina Abdul Ghafar and Noorsyahidda Wagi Abdul Sani displayed great skills to garner the highest points of 576 in Pool A to move into the final with Singapore (553).

Written by K. KANDIAH
Sourced from http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-95560663/give-malaysia-five.html

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