RECORD-BREAKING
Heartening display by trio gives hope for golden shower at Sea Games
REPORTS BY FARAH AZHARIE farahazharie@nst.com.my
MALAYSIA waterski team’s preparations for the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games is going better than expected with the squad recording impressive results at the Florida Inboard Open last weekend.
The team underwent a sixweek training stint in Florida before competing in the Santa Rosa Beach event where Syahir Nasir and Adam Yoong Hanafiah set national records.
Syahir, 19, bettered the 23-year old national record previously held by Alex Yoong, by scoring 3 buoys/13metre rope/58kilometres per hour in round two on Sunday.
Syahir then went on to set another record at 1/12/58 which is within range of a Sea Games gold as the 2015 winning mark of Singaporean Mark Leong was 3/12/58.
Adam, nine, bettered Alex’s 24year old national record in the trick on Saturday when he scored 3,920 points to finish first in the Under-13 category.
In the women’s event, Adam’s sister Aaliyah recorded a personal best of 32.3m in the jump.
The two-time Sea Games gold Lumpur, Joshua hopes to make the nation, as well as his friends and family, proud and is counting on a two-month training stint in South Korea — where he will be sparring with top fencers — to help him.
“You need to fence with the best to be the best because in Malaysia, there isn’t much but in Korea, there are so many and it will help me improve my game.”
Joshua will leave for Korea on Sunday and upon his return, will compete in the Asian Championships on July 19-26 before returning to Korea to continue training for the Sea Games.