KUCHING: Randy Owen Augustine Linggi’s first appearance brought a windfall to the Sarawak taekwondo squad at the 2024 Malaysia Games (SUKMA) with the achievement of two gold medals in the men’s individual and team poomsae events at the Petra Jaya Unity Stadium here.
The success helped the homesters start the poomsae competition on the right foot by collecting three golds, one silver and one bronze.
The 19-year-old national backup exponent said participating at several international tournaments gave him loads of confidence in displaying neat patterns of movements to land a gold medal on home ground.
He said that since he started taekwondo at age 14, he had dreamed of competing in SUKMA and winning gold for his home state.
“In addition to intensive training at the National Sports Council (NSC) in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, I also participated in international tournaments like winning gold at the Canada Open in the men’s team event and a bronze of the ASEAN Taekwondo Championships in Vietnam in the same event this year.
“By participating in the tournaments, I was able to elevate my performance such as improving on my poomsae tempo, kicking and controlling my nerves on court,” he told Bernama.
Randy hopes that after SUKMA, he will have the opportunity to participate in more prestigious tournaments.
In today’s individual event, Randy collected 7.80 points for gold to leave Perlis’ Yeap Zhi Bin (7.71 points) to take silver while Johor’s Woo Jun Yi (7.71 points) and Perak’s Cheong Qi Yap (7.52 points) shared the bronze.
As for the team event, Randy teamed up with Fedealis Kom Twin and Mohd Isshahril Mazlan to beat their foes from the Federal Territories and Perak.
For the women’s team poomsae event, the hosts also won gold through the trio of Farah Nabilla Maddarus, Siti Yusriyyah Zailani and Willemien Lai Lin.
Farah Nabilla, 20, said the sacrifice of six months of training in Vietnam turned out to be fruitful for them.
“This year, we only focused on SUKMA, including training in Vietnam with the coach there as well, where the routine was very tight and the training also very challenging physically and mentally. This victory is for our coach, who did not give up teaching us up to this point,” she said.
