PETALING JAYA: Changes to the competition format in the SEA Games for wushu may potentially affect Malaysia’s chances of winning medals in next year’s Thailand SEA Games.
In the wushu competition format, organisers have switched it up for the first time, combining three events in the ‘taolu’ discipline (weapons and bare hands categories), according to the New Straits Times.
Furthermore, the duilian (duel) and sanda (sparring) categories will include four events each thus adding to a total number of 14 events for the SEA Games.
The men’s ‘taolu’ category of the biennial games will include combined events such as ‘nanquan-nandao-nangun’, ‘changquan-daoshu-gunshu’ and ‘taijiquan-taijijian’.
In the women’s category, combinations included are ‘nanquan-nandao-nangun’, ‘changquan-qiangshu-jianshu’ and ‘taijiquan-taijijian’.
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Wushu Federation of Malaysia (WFM) president Datuk Chong Kim Fatt said the format change may cause athletes to be fatigued as they will be competing on three consecutive days.
“We will try to discuss this with the organisers. If the format remains, we hope the wushu schedule will extend beyond three days so each taolu event can be held on a different day,“ he was quoted as saying.
With this, Chong added that exponents must plan their events “carefully”, as quoted.
Commenting his thoughts on the format change, world champion Wong Weng Son asserted that national exponents must be quick to adapt to the change.
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“We need to avoid repeating past experiences. Malaysian exponents have previously struggled to adjust to format changes, which cost us gold medals,“ he was quoted as saying.
For last year’s SEA Games in Phnom Penh, the national wushu squad clinched two gold medals in the women’s ‘nanquan’ and ‘nandao-nangun’ through ‘taolu’ exponent Tan Cheong Min along with two silver and six bronze medals.
