Northern Zone athletes are 2017 SukSar champs
BINTULU: The Northern Zone contingent surpassed their 31gold target to emerge as 2017 Sukan Sarawak (Suksar) overall champions after winning 78 gold yesterday. Their athletes ( representing Limbang, Miri, Bintulu) bagged a total of 174 medals including 59 silver and 37 bronze.
Southern Zone ( Kuching, Samarahan, Serian) with 68- 5449 and Central Zone ( Kapit, Sibu, Mukah) with 23- 46- 51 finished second and third respectvely. Western Zone (Sarikei, Betong, Sri Aman) collected 16 gold, 20 silver and 24 bronze medals.
Head of the Northern Zone contingent Muhamad Yakup Kari was in a buoyant mood when he congratulated his athletes and coaches.
“If our current sport facilities can be upgraded and improved we believe and are confident that we might be able to grab more medals and more potential athletes could be produced to compete in the second SukSar 2019 in Miri,” said Yakup who is also the Resident of Bintulu.
Weightlifting contributed the most gold medals for the Northern Zone with 24 followed by athletics with 18, karate (7), muaythai ( 6), archery ( 6), judo ( 4), athletics ( para) 4, swimming ( para) 3, swimming (2) and a gold each from handball, petanque, badminton and sepak takraw.
Ting Kee Wei, who competed in archery, added an individual honour for the winning zone when he received the most promising male athlete award.
The other three most promising awards were won by athletes from Southern Zone: swimmer Tan Tyng, male para swimmer Kho Zen Wei and female para track & field athlete Nur Farhani Kudus.
The closing ceremony of the 2017 SukSar yesterday was officiated by Minister of Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.