Muhammad Aqil, Azreen prove back up athletes competitive

IPOH, Sept 20 (Bernama) -- The achievements of sprint king Muhammad Aqil Yasmin and sprint queen Azreen Nabila Alias at the 19th Malaysia Games (Sukma) proved that the national squad was not lacking in talents in sprint events.

Muhammad Aqil of Selangor won two gold medals in 100 metres (m) and 200 m, and also renewed the 200 m record of national sprinter Khairul Hafiz Jantan in a time of 21.01 to wipe off the previous record of 21.03s.

Azreen from Terengganu was in a class of her own with three gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m event, including creating a new record of 11.81s in the 100m event, to beat Johor's Siti Fatimah Ahmad’s 11.82s record of 10 years ago.

The impressive performances of the two athletes needed to be given specific exposure and training such as (for) Khairul Hafiz, Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli and other national athletes so that their talents were not wasted.

The athletic events which ended today saw Selangor ahead with eight gold medals followed by Johor and Sarawak with seven gold medals each and Terengganu with four gold medals.

In the mean time, a national record in weightlifting was broken by Selangor athlete, Nur Afiqah Nadhrah Mohammed Borhan in the women’s below 90 kilogrammes (kg) snatch category with a lift of 92 kg to erase the previous record of 91 kg belonging to Siti Aisyah Md Rosli.

Terengganu led the medal tally with 46 gold medals, 40 silver medals and 47 bronze medals on the 10th day of the festival today.

Federal Territories was in second place with 42 gold medals, 34 silver medals, 42 bronze medals and Selangor with 38 gold medals, 61 silver medals and 57 bronze medals in third place.

The 11th day of the Games tomorrow, the sport that offered the most gold medals would be boxing with eight gold medals, swimming (seven gold medals), weightlifting (four gold medals), cycling (seven gold medals).

-- BERNAMA