Friday October 28, 2005
KUALA LUMPUR: The national taekwondo team have the task to make up for the disappointment of a one-gold haul at the last SEA Games in Vietnam in 2003.
Lim Yit Win secured the country's only gold medal in taekwondo and the face-saving victory came on the last day of the competition.
For the upcoming Manila SEA Games, it will definitely not be easy for the Malaysian exponents because those from the rival countries have improved by leaps and bounds.
The battle for the majority of the 16 gold medals at stake is expected to be a three-cornered fight among the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Taekwondo is one of the most popular combat sports in the Philippines and their exponents have featured in the last two Olympics.
The Filipinos have been training in Europe since the beginning of the year and they are expected to stake a strong claim for gold medals in the men's competition together with the Vietnamese.
Malaysia can expect to aim for top honours in the women's competitions together with Indonesia.
Coach R. Dhanaraj has only identified two exponents – Elaine Teo and Che Chew Chan – as the good bets for gold medals.
Both are former SEA Games champions and are the only two taekwondo exponents under the 2006 elite squad programme.
Both Elaine and Chew Chan will compete in different weight divisions for tactical reasons.
Elaine has moved back to bantamweight to avoid clashing with Athens Olympics bronze medallist Yaowapa Boorapolchai of Thailand, who is the favourite to win the flyweight competition.
“It is very hard for Elaine if she remains in flyweight. She will have to fight it out with the Thai or the Indonesian girl (Juwana Wangsa Puteri, who won the world qualifiers for the Olympics in Paris in 2003),” said Dhanaraj.
“Chew Chan also has a better chance if she competes in the middleweight category.”
However, the other Malaysian exponents can spring a few surprises if the draws are favourable to them.
Among those with the potential to rise to the occasion are male exponents Rusfredy Tokan Petrus and Mohd Afifuddin Omar, bronze medallists in the Korean Open and Islamic Solidarity Games this year.
Noornadia Norrizan, who is making her SEA Games debut with twin sister Noordiana, won gold in the South-East Asian championships last year and she could be counted on to deliver as weel.
Malaysia, in fact, have lost the chance to fight for medals in five categories.
The majority of the exponents have also been training under a cloud of uncertainty after the national body were de-registered recently.
It was only two months ago that the remaining exponents received assurances from the National Sports Council (NSC) on their funding and participation.
Source from http:www.thestar.com.my
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