Archers aim for four in gold-medal hunt

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Kho (left) and teammates in the Sukma shadow team during a recent training session.

Kho (left) and teammates in the Sukma shadow team during a recent training session.

KUCHING: The archery competition in the coming 18th Sukma will be tough. This is because the Games Council has allowed national archers to take part.

“This is not a new issue and all competing states have agreed to this rule being implemented in this Sukma. As the host, we can’t do anything.

“Nevertheless, I will do my best to ensure that we will achieve the four-gold medal target set by the Sarawak State Sports Council,” said state head coach Abdul Razak Yaacob. According to him, all except two members of the state team are new but he has come up with five special programmes to prepare the archers, starting next month.

“We are now in the second phase of training where our focus is more on a systematic training aimed at improving the archers performance and assess the weaknesses of every athlete.”

The team’s first exposure will be the National Archery Circuit in Kuala Lumpur next month, followed by the Johor International Archery Championship in March.

The squad will then compete in the Pre-Sukma competition at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) from March 4-8.

Razak is in no hurry to select the final squad of 16 archers from the 20-member shadow team as he will be monitoring their progress and performance until May.

What is certain is that Sarawak will bank on Kho Yee Ting and Cheryl Rudang Goh to deliver the goods.

The duo shot down three gold, one silver and one bronze medals at the last Sukma in Perlis two years ago.

“Kho and Cheryl are still capable of giving a strong challenge in this Sukma,” he said, adding that Sarawak hope to capture gold medals in the men’s and women’s recurve and compound events.