Malaysian triple treat
Malaysian sports served a triple treat as badminton, squash and taekwondo won big abroad and at home. Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie stunned Olympic champions Tontowi Ahmad-Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia to win the Singapore Open mixed doubles title. Penang
PETALING JAYA: The stars are shining bright for Malaysia’s taekwondo exponents ahead of the Indonesia Asian Games next month.
The poomsae exponents proved they were shaping up well for the Games when they landed two gold medals and a silver in the Jeju Korea Open International kwondo Championships in Island yesterday.
Chew Wei Yan was the star of the team when he won the new poomsae individual gold medal while Yong Jin Kun clinched the silver medal at the Jeju Halla Gymnasium yesterday.
The duo then combined with Australian An Ji-heon to win the TaeJeju men’s new poomsae team event. The trio also won the men’s recognised poomsae event last Friday.
The Korea Open is a G2 category tournament which allows teams to compete with mixed nationalities.
National taekwondo poomsae head coach Yap Yih Tiing said his charges’ performance in Jeju was a strong indicator of their under- standing of the scoring system for the new poomsae event which will be contested in the Indonesian Asian Games.
“Wei Yan’s individual performance was good.
“He won high points in accuracy and connection in the new poomsae event.
“In the team event, we won by presentation points ( choreogra- phy),” said Yih Tiing yesterday.
“The new poomsae is more focused on connection between the moves.
“Flow of the movement is also important.
“This is a very good performance by our athletes, especially in the new poomsae event ... this raises our hopes of winning medals in the Asian Games.”