SHAH ALAM, Sept 18 — The Selangor karate team created a sensation when they won the 20th Malaysia Games (Sukma) men’s team kumite gold medal after beating the Federal Territories in the finals yesterday.
The Federal Territories won the first point in the match at Dewan Kompleks Sukan Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Shah Alam through T. Yuvanraj, who beat K. Thevadharshan, but Selangor’s S. Khavinraj, N. Moganakumar and M. Gogulnath then came on to win their bouts against their respective opponents, G. Kathish, V. Kueggen and V. Logen, delivering the points needed to win the event.
Selangor coach S. Prem Kumar was proud of the win, pointing out that one of his charges had managed to beat national athlete, G. Kathish.
“This is something we have seriously waiting for, a second medal for Selangor. We are satisfied with the win. We work out all this while for the team to show Malaysia that we are the strongest team.
“There isn’t much (of a) gap between our fighters and the national team. In fact, our boys were invited by the national team but due to Sukma, we held off on the invitation due to the different teachers that could bring impact towards the players,” he told Bernama after the match here yesterday.
The bronze were won by Penang and Sabah after they defeated their rivals Kedah and Terengganu in the third place finisher.
Meanwhile, the Sabah women’s kumite team sprung a surprise by beating Selangor 2-0 to secure the gold medal of the women’s team event, with Leong Jia Chii overcoming A. Kayathri for the first point, while Pressy Misty Philip secured the win by downing B. Tanushree.
Pressy told Bernama that the victory made up for her failure in yesterday’s women’s over 69 kilogramme (kg) event, in which she only managed a silver medal.
“The Sabah team wanted to get the gold as we failed to win any in Sukma 2018, so today (yesterday) we went all out after three years’ training. This being my first and last Sukma, I’m very proud of winning the gold for Sabah,” she said.
The bronze medals went to Kedah and Penang after beating Terengganu and Johor in the third place decider.
— Bernama
