Brothers Mohd Sufi Shayiran (2nd L) and Mohd Adi Sya'rani Roslan (2nd R) with their gold medals from the duilian event at the 8th Asian Junior Wushu Championships in a group photo with national wushu coach Li Hui (L) and team manager Lim Boon Hwa. Courtesy of Li Hui
IT was the perfect ending for the national junior wushu team at the eighth Asian Junior Wushu Championships in China.
Brothers Mohd Sufi Shayiran and Mohd Adi Sya'rani Roslan struck gold in the under-18 duilian (duo sparring with broadsword and spear) to end their campaign at the Xilin Gol League, Inner Mongolia.
They produced a score of 9.35 to finish ahead of Iran, who managed 9.30. Hong Kong completed the podium a further 0.03 points back. Brunei will finish the August 6-9 biennial competition with a haul of one gold, three silver and one bronze medals - their best showing in the four editions that they have competed in since 2009.
Their previous best was in the sixth edition held in Shanghai back in 2011 whereby the pair of Lee YingShi and Karyn Ho Chia Yin won the duilian event. National wushu coach Li Hui is glad to see the sport continuing to grow and hopes that they can get another coach to help out with some events.
"It was a good improvement from the bronze medal which they won at the SEA Games in Singapore last month. The competition is at a really high level with all the other countries sending their best youth to compete," said Li yesterday.
"We are getting better and increasing in the number of athletes. I want to focus on the taiji events especially that we even got a bronze medal here but we will need another coach as I cannot do it alone," he added.
Sufi had notched the first silver medal in the nandao (sourthern sword) event on Thursday. The team then added two silver and one bronze medals on Saturday. Adi bagged a second place finish in the daoshu (broadsword) event for the first silver medal while the other was courtesy of Amelia Chan Yi Xin in the changquan (long fist) event.
Hosea Wong Zheng Yu won the only bronze medal for the Sultanate in the under-15 taijijian (taiji double-edged sword) event.
A total of 396 athletes from 24 countries participated in the competition with Brunei sending 10 athletes - Koh Yun C, Madjurano Hoel, Ling De Xuan, Ericsson Bong, Basma Lachkar and Nur Batrisyia Ripin being the others.
The national wushu team will now shift their focus to the 13th World Wushu Championships to be held from Nov 11-18 in Jakarta.
