NST Online: Sports
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| Athletics / Malaysian Schools Championships: Elice runs into the record book Posted: 21 May 2011 05:42 PM PDT Athletics / Malaysian Schools Championships: Elice runs into the record book2011/05/22 AMIRUL Mukimin Yusmiza and Stefbilce Sandy Stephen were crowned the sprint king and queen respectively of the Malaysian Schools Athletics Championships in Ipoh yesterday as rain continued to affect performances. Only one record was renewed on day two of the five-day meet, the second so far, and that too came before the sky opened as Elice Grenggori of Sabah took advantage of her luck to win the girls' Under-12 100m final. Elice's time of 13.11s was just 0.04 inside the old record set by Evelyn Francis of Sarawak last year in a comfortable win with Kedah's Nurul Atikah Nazrol trailing a distant second in 13.45.
"I'm surprised I won. This is my first medal," said the shy Stefbilce who finally came good in her fourth appearance at this meet. Likewise after three fruitless years chasing a medal, Pahang's Amirul finally struck gold in his fourth attempt although he had to work hard for it.
"This is the biggest win for me so far. Before this, I've only won things at state level," said Amirul. "I know I can run faster as my best is 10.72. But I have the Asean Schools Championships coming up, so hopefully I can do it there."
There was also high drama in the girls' Under-15 high jump where Sarawak's Chang Shing Yin edged Perak's Nur Syahira Osman on countback, to the disappointment of the home crowd, after both ended on 1.53m. Three girls shared the bronze medal after a countback could not separate Nur Izzatiakmal Nazriladzin (Kedah), Nur Hidayah Hamizan (Perak) and Nurizatul Syahirah Ashari (KL), who were all tied on 1.45m. Sarawak doubled their gold medal tally to eight as the defending overall champions added four more yesterday through Raphael Asun (boys' Under-15 javelin), Tiong Mee Yien (girls' hammer), Chang Shing Yin (girls' Under-15 high jump) and Shirley Lau Wei Wei (girls' Under-12 high jump). Perlis claimed their first gold medal in several years when Faez Ikmal Norhisam won the boys' Under-18 javelin while Kelantan, after a four-gold haul on Friday, only had a bronze to show. Only Malacca and Kuala Lumpur have yet to win a gold medal with three days to go. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Badminton / Sudirman Cup: Back-ups must emulate Chong Wei Posted: 21 May 2011 05:41 PM PDT 2011/05/22  Yang Li Lian beat Lim Chiew Sien 19-21, 21-14, 21-18 to reach the final. — Picture by Fariz Iswadi Ismail Rashid, yesterday preparing the players for the Sudirman Cup, lamented on the negative attitude shown by back-up shuttlers who don't try hard enough to follow the footsteps of World No 1 Lee Chong Wei. Rashid said the other countries face the same problem but their back-up players are much better and he is concerned about the bleak future after Chong Wei retires.
"The difference is, the back-up players in those countries are consistently beating our back-up players," said Rashid. "This is very worrying indeed and I hope our players look to Chong Wei as a source of inspiration. Some of the back-up players need to change their attitude and thinking as they are lagging behind Chong Wei.
"He (Chong Wei) has shown that a Malaysian can survive being at the top of the world rankings for a long time and consistently win big tournaments. Now it is up to them to emulate his feats." Malaysia will be heavily dependent on Chong Wei in the Sudirman Cup as back-up shuttler Chong Wei Feng doesn't stand a chance against others.
It will get tougher against Indonesia as Chong Wei is the only one who can beat Simon Santoso to confirm a point in the tie on Wednesday. Should Malaysia beat both Russia and Indonesia, they will be in a better position to reach the semi-finals. This is because Malaysia can avoid meeting top seeds China, South Korea or Japan in the quarter-finals if they can top Group B. Should they lose to Indonesia, they may even face China in the quarter-finals and that will be the end of the road for the Malaysia who reached the semi-finals in Guangzhou two years ago. Meanwhile, Russian team manager Stepin Maxim has already conceded beating Malaysia or Indonesia but he sees badminton has a great future in his country as the sport will soon be part of the schooling education system as one of the main curriculum activities. "The sport is growing and we have more and more youngsters taking up badminton back in Russia. It may not be as popular as tennis is at the moment, but given time, I'm sure badminton will be just as welcome around the country," said Maxim "The game received a big boost when we qualified for Group 1 of this year's Sudirman Cup. I'm confident it will continue to grow, especially with the latest incentives put into place to teach schoolchildren badminton. "Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova helped glamorise tennis as they are very beautiful. Russian badminton players are also not bad looking so that it good," added Maxim with a laugh. "That could help with the game's popularity." "We are placed last out of the 12 teams in the top tier. As such, we have to be realistic about our chances. Obviously, we know it won't be easy to beat either Indonesia or Malaysia but we will try our best and a lot will depend on our women players." Team like Russia have started making huge strides and Malaysia wouldn't want to be in a situation where some of national back-up shuttlers start losing to their players in future. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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