From Vikneswaran Raman
HANGZHOU, Oct 6 (NNN-Bernama) — After 12 days of doing battle, the Malaysian contingent surpassed their 27-medal target in the Hangzhou Asian Games on Thursday and will be hunting for bonus medals in the remaining days of competition.
On Thursday, the national contingent brought cheers to Malaysian fans by raking in two golds, two silvers and one bronze to raise their overall haul to five golds, six silvers and 17 bronzes, or a total of 28 medals.
The squash camp kept up their excellent performance by contributing two golds, from Ng Eain Yow and S. Sivasangari in men’s and women’s singles respectively, and a silver from mixed doubles pair Mohammad Syafiq Mohd Kamal-Aifa Azman.
The squash squad ended their Asian Games campaign with three golds, one silver and one bronze, having won the women’s team gold and men’s team bronze last Saturday.
Young karate exponent Lovelly Anne Robberth had the honour of winning the country’s 27th medal when she grabbed the silver in women’s individual kata after losing to 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games silver medallist Kiyou Shimizu of Japan in the final.
The archery camp finally landed a medal when the trio of Mohd Juwaidi Mazuki, Alang Ariff Aqil Muhammad Ghaz and Mohamad Syafiq Md Ariffin retained the men’s compound team bronze won by Mohd Juwaidi, Alang Ariff and Lee Kin Lip in the last edition.
At the Binjiang Gymnasium, Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik made sure the badminton team would not return empty-handed for a second successive time when they beat China’s Liu Yu Chen-Ou Xuan Yi 21-18, 19-21, 21-18 in 81 minutes to qualify for the semi-finals.
Malaysia’s other representatives in the badminton quarter-finals, including men’s singles ace Lee Zii Jia, all crashed out.
The national contingent will continue their challenge in equestrian, badminton, jiu-jitsu, sepak takraw, rhythmic gymnastics and karate on Friday.
In men’s hockey, Malaysia will face Pakistan in the fifth-sixth placing play-off after failing to qualify for the semi-finals from Group B.
— NNN-BERNAMA