Gymnasts team spring another podium surprise

KUALA LUMPUR: The national rhythmic gymnastics senior squad gave Malaysia a surprise when they won a bronze medal in the 2018 Rhythmic Gymnastics Asia Championship, held at the Axiata Arena, Kuala Lumpur Sports City yesterday.

The team comprising Koh Jei Yi, Chan Mei Thung, Nur Naieme Zainul Ariffin, Rachel Cheng, Tee Wei Wen and Shak Yuki claimed the bronze medal with a total of 16,200 points to set aside their nearest rivals from China who received 13,700 points.

The event's gold medal was won by Japan with 17,750 points, while Kazakhstan won the silver with 16,750 points.

“After last year's SEA Games, the team continued their training early this year to prepare for the Asian Championships. This tournament is very tough and was the second largest tournament for group exercise after the World Championships,” said coach Eriko Akibayashi of Japan.

Eriko was very satisfied with her girls and hoped the podium finish would motivate her gymnasts to produce another good performance on the final day today.

Meanwhile in the senior individual all-around competition, Amy Kwan Dict Weng admitted the mistakes she made in the ribbon routine had caused her a lot of points.

“I don't know what went wrong today. I've never done such big mistakes like today, even during training in the ribbon apparatus. I knew that I'm good in ribbon.

“I just don't want to get carried away with today's results and I want to fight back in the individual event,” said the 23-year-old.

Amy stood in 10th place with a total of 54.450 points while another Malaysian, Izzah Amzan had to settle for the 13th place with 51.950 points.

The senior individual all-around competition was won by Kazakhstan's Alina Adilkhanova with a total of 63.250 points, while Uzbekistan's Sabina Tashkenbaeva and Nurinisso Usmanova took the silver and bronze medal with a total of 62.750 and 61.800 points respectively. - Bernama