Exposure trip for state Sukma petanque squad

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KUCHING: The Sarawak Sukma petanque squad has announced yesterday that the team will fly to Peninsular Malaysia on May 26 for an exposure trip to further sharpen their skills and gain valuable competitive match experience.

The squad will be competing in the Triangular Petanque tournament in Kuala Lumpur from May 28 to 30 which involves the Sukma petanque squads of Sarawak, Federal Territory and Selangor.

“Despite having only three teams participating, other Sukma teams from Terengganu and Johor are expected to join along at the later stages of the competition. Petanque powerhouse Perak could not participate as they are participating and organising an open competition at their own state at the same time,” state petanque team manager Yazit Belon told The Borneo Post yesterday.

During a meeting with the Assistant Minister of Sports Datuk Lee Kim Shin at his office yesterday, Yazit revealed that they have done the final selections for the Sukma petanque team.

“Among the members of the squad are Tan Kim Moi and Nor Nashuha Ubaidillah who won gold medal for the state during the 2008 Sukma in Terengganu. For the upcoming Sukma XV, the state petanque squad comprises seven boys and seven girls. The team is targeting one gold, one silver and two bronze medals in Sukma XV,” added Yazit.

For the record, Sarawak has only managed to win one silver and one bronze medal through the team event category in the last Sukma hosted by Melaka. The silver medal was won by the girl’s team.

“We want our state petanque athletes to have as much match exposure as possible. This is why we have agreed to participate in this competition. I hope that the new team members could learn from their more experienced seniors in competition,” said Lee.

Lee added that he was happy with the preparations made by the state team and hoped they do well in the Triangular Petanque competition.

“At Sukma XV, a total of 11 categories will be competed with the introduction of the mixed group events category. The state will aim to win medals through the group events,” informed Lee.

“The state petanque team has already started their centralised training. I would like to thank the state government for providing very good infrastructure and facilities at our current training centre located at SMK Santubong,” said Yazit.