Official Website of Brunei Darussalam National Olympic Council
NEWS & EVENTS
Lessons learnt from Thai trip
Thursday, September 10, 2015
 class=



NO new personal bests were set but lessons were learnt at the Thailand Open Track and Field Championships 2015.

The team of Md Asy Syafi'e Md Bohari, Md Rachmat Safar, Md Faizul Abdullah, Maziah Mahusin and Md Adenin Bolhan represented the country at the Sept 6-9 competition held at the Thammasat University Sports Complex in Bangkok.

Md Asy Syafi'e was the best performer for the Sultanate after progressing into the final of the men's 100m event. He clocked a time of 10.83s in the heats before improving to 10.76s in the semi-finals to gain his berth for a chance of a podium finish. However, he was left disappointed after getting stopped in his tracks for a false start.

"I was shocked with the false start as I felt comfortable prior to the race and even thought about winning," said Md Asy Syafi'e in an interview with The Brunei Times yesterday when contacted. "But in the end I didn't even know why my body moved forward. I felt really sad about it but it is alright. Maybe Allah has planned something else for me," he added.

His personal best remains the 10.67s set at the 28th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Singapore in June. "This experience was good because it taught me both happiness and sadness. I'm still young and I know that I can further develop myself," said the 18-year-old. "Even Usain Bolt has been through bad times. There are more competitions and I'm focused on that," he added.

Md Rachmat and Md Faizul, who also competed in the same event, were looking to better their personal bests - 11.10s and 11.13s respectively - and go under 11 seconds. Things didn't go accordingly as Md Faizul clocked a time of 11.21s while Md Rachmat managed 11.60s in their respective heats.

"It was a close race but it's kind of disappointing for me because I wanted to get a personal best time by running at least 10.9s or 11s flat to qualify for the semi-finals," said Md Faizul. "I got off to a good start but struggled a little bit in the last 15 metres. I will just continue my training and am looking forward to the Brunei Open," he added. Md Rachmat felt that his rough start led to a slower time.

"It was a bad run for me as I made a mistake and because of that I couldn't make it into the semi-finals. I didn't expect this kind of result but I couldn't give my best. I didn't feel in the best condition," said Md Rachmat. "I can only learn from it and ensure that I don't make the same mistake again. It was good coming here to compete as I can see how determined the others were," he added.

Maziah Mahusin competed in the women's 200m event and ran a time of 25.96 seconds in the heat to qualify for the semi-finals. She couldn't make it in into the final after producing a time of 26.03s to place seventh in her eight-participant semi-finals.

"I'm still a little satisfied as I managed to run 25 seconds this year. I'm slowly getting back to my personal best. I will now focus on the Brunei Open next month," said Maziah, whose best time is 25.44s. "I was up against some very strong competitors. I thought I ran really fast but in the end it just wasn't fast enough. I may not win immediately but definitely," added Brunei's first female Olympian.

When asked on what she managed to gain from her first outing of the year, she replied: "In athletics, we go through ups and downs and this is just part of the games." "I realise that I have to prepare in terms of my mentality and focus more on my running techniques. I will just continue training and improve on my weaknesses," she added.

Md Adenin Bolhan, who won gold in both the events at the 8th BIMP-EAGA (Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area) Friendship Games in December last year, is the other Bruneian at the competition and contested in both the discus and shot put events.

He managed a throw of 37.03m to finish in 15th position out of 23 participants for the former and placed in the same position out of 19 contestants in latter a throw of 10.61m. The distance was well short of his personal bests of 40.41m in the discus event and 13.75m in the shot put event.

Courtesy from Brunei Times