Waterski: Malaysia Should Be Wary Of Indonesia's Challenge

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 (Bernama) – National waterski and wakeboard athletes should be on a lookout for challenges posed by Indonesian competitors to snatch the gold medals of the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games. National waterski and wakeboard team manager Ahmad Azudin said Indonesia has skilled and experienced skiers capable of challenging Malaysia’s squad. “Indonesia are seen as the main threat to Malaysia’s waterski gold collection with their relatively large men’s and women’s squads,” he told Bernama. However, he is confident with Malaysia’s top women’s waterskier, Aaliyah Yoong Hanifah, 14, to deliver at least two gold medals in the meet. “She has an edge over her competitors in the region with her recent improved performance for this outing. Nonetheless, we will not take things easy as it would be a tight race,” he said. Aaliyah has been listed to compete in all waterski events (tricks, slalom, jump and overall individual) as well as wakeboard in the SEA Games. She was the youngest waterskier to win a gold medal in the 2011 SEA Games in Indonesia and repeated her feat to clinch the gold in the tricks and overall individual events in Singapore two years ago. The events were not featured in the 2013 SEA Games in Myanmar. Ahmad said for the slalom event, Aaliyah would be challenging the 2011 and 2015 SEA Games gold medalist, Sasha Christian of Singapore while in the jump event, Aaliyah would be facing SEA Games defending champion Rossi Amir of Indonesia. “If she could display her best performance and stave off the two challengers, we could collect the overall gold. So we are hoping luck to be on our side, the weather and so on,” he said. He said he would not be putting any pressure on her to achieve better results in the biennial meet. “Let Aaliyah enjoy the competition environment and she may achieve more than our target,” he said. On the capability of the youngest participants in the national contingent, Adam, 9, and Aiden Yoong Hanifah, 11, he said the two younger brothers of Aaliyah had shown tremendous improvement after returning from a training stint in United States. “Aiden won a bronze in the 2015 SEA Games in the tricks event and we hope he could better his haul this time. For Adam, we hope he will achieve his personal best apart from giving him the exposure,” he said. There will be 11 gold medals up for grab in waterski and wakeboard events scheduled from Aug 25 to 29 at Putrajaya Water Sports Complex in the 29th Kuala Lumpur SEA Games. -- BERNAMA