KUALA LUMPUR – Three national taekwondo exponents from the kyorugi (sparring) squad will celebrate next month’s Hari Raya Aidilfitri away from home as they will be undergoing a month-long intensive training in South Korea from Sunday (April 10) ahead of the Hanoi SEA Games in Vietnam from May 12 to 23.
National coach Rusfredy Tokan Petrus said the three exponents are 2019 SEA Games silver medallist Ahmad Nor Iman Hakim Rakib (68-kilogramme (kg) featherweight), Muhammad Syafiq Zuber (80kg welterweight) and Nurul Farah Alisa Roslan (63kg lightweight).
Two other exponents who will also be training in South Korea are Sebastian Tan Chung Wan (54kg finweight) and Fu Cern Put Thai (58kg flyweight).
Rusfredy said the decision to train in South Korea, which is usually the team’s preferred destination for final preparations ahead of the biennial Games, was to help raise the mental and physical levels of the exponents for the Vietnam Games.
“Preparations (for the Hanoi SEA Games) are coming along smoothly… hopefully the exponents will be prepared psychologically before we head to South Korea because of the high-intensity training there.
“Usually, they will train four times a day in South Korea... they will also be able to change sparring partners at the training venue,” he told a media conference here today.
Rusfredy also hopes their move to get Muhammad Syafiq, who won bronze in the 74kg lightweight category at the 2019 SEA Games in the Philippines, to move up to the 80kg welterweight division in Hanoi will pay off.
This, he said, was because he expects the lighter division to be dominated by exponents from Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand.
Rusfredy also explained that the decision to switch Ahmad Nor Iman from the 63kg bantamweight category to the 68kg featherweight division was made because the exponent had gained weight.
Team manager Ong Thiam Hock, meanwhile, said the national exponents would undergo the final phase of training at the Chungnam Physical Education High School until May 13 before leaving South Korea for Vietnam the next day, with the SEA Games taekwondo competition set to begin on May 19.
Ong said he had yet to set any targets for the SEA Games as he wanted to assess their performance during the South Korean training stint first.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Nur Iman, who is thrilled to get the chance to go overseas since he last represented the country at the Manila SEA Games in 2019, believes that the month-long South Korean training stint would be sufficient for him to gear up and give his best in Vietnam.
Muhammad Syafiq, meanwhile, said he too does not expect any problems and is confident of being able to deliver the goods despite participating in a higher weight category. – Bernama, April 9, 2022
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