S’wak archers upbeat about chances in Johor

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Low (left, back row), coach Ahmad Aliff Fadullah Ali (right) and MSNS sports development officer Awang Addin Awang Sufian (left) with the Kuching-based elite and backup archers at the archery range at the Sarawak Stadium Complex. — Photo by Teo Chi Wei

KUCHING: National junior archer Bryson Ting Tiew Luing is expected to deliver gold medals for Sarawak in the 20th Sukma to be held in Johor from March 6 to 14 next year.

He will be defending the Men’s 70m Recurve individual title and competing in team events.

However, Sarawak head coach Jaffery Low Wei Loon said the focus is to strike gold in the Men’s 70m Recurve team event and the Women’s 50m Compound team event.

“We are aiming for two gold medals in the coming Sukma Johor 2020 and hopefully get more. There maybe some other surprise medals.

“It is hard to predict how we will fare in Johor because there is only one national competition this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic so we cannot assess the performance of our archers and that of other states.

“Furthermore, the competition format is different as the organiser is using match round while the previous format in Perak is 1440 round,” he pointed out.

With the change of format, the number of gold medals has been reduced from 24 to 14 which will be contested in the Men’s 50m Compound individual and team, Men’s 70m Recurve individual and team, Women’s 50m Compound individual and team, Women’s 70m Recurve individual and team, 50m compound mixed team and 70m recurve team.

Gold medals are also awarded for the Olympic rankings round.

Sarawak’s main rivals in the medals quest are Sabah, Terengganu and Penang while teams like Pahang, Kedah and host Johor can also pose a strong threat.

“We have quite a balanced team as six of the previous Sukma Perak team members have been retained for the challenge in Johor.

“I am quite confident our archers can perform well in Sukma Johor as they have been registering good scores during training which is up to my expectations,” added Low who revealed that currently 23 elite archers are in the Sukma Shadow Team and they will be reduced to the final squad of four men and four women by November.

The archers are training at their respective centres in Bukit Jalil (2), Taiwan (1), Kuching (7), Sibu (2), Miri (9), Lawas (1) and Bintulu (1).