Malaysia's contingent 40-gold medal target achieved
Iskandar Zulkarnain holding up his gold medal, with a sign indicating that Malaysia had achieved the 40-gold medal target in Palembang today. - BERNAMApic
Shuttlers Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin (men's singles) and Mohd Lutfi Zaim Abd Khalid-Chow Mei Kuan (mixed doubles), helped push Malaysia gold medal tally to 40 in the 17th Asean University Games, here, after winning their respective finals.
The 40 gold, 43 silver and 49 bronze medals won thus far saw the Malaysian contingent achieve the target set for the AUG that draws down its curtain today.
Malaysian contingent chef-de-mission Datuk Prof Dr Abdullah Mohd Said said though he was relieved to have achieved the 40-gold medal target, he personally was not satisfied with the performance of some sports that were expected to deliver the goods, especially sepak takraw, taekwondo and silat.
"I am happy that the Malaysian contingent achieved to target set for the AUG but some sports did not live up to expectations.
"There were sports that we had expected to deliver the goods but they failed but fortunately some sports that we did not set any target surpassed all expectations to deliver gold medals," he told reporters, here today.
Sports that came to the rescue were badminton which delivered two gold medals while fencing, tennis, table tennis contributed one each.
He added that aquatics with 14 gold was the highest contributor of gold medals in the 17th AUG although the sport did not match the 21-gold medal feat in the previous edition hosted by Laos in 2012.
Malaysia sent a contingent comprising 322 athletes and 77 officials who competed in 20 sports.
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