| Fadhil Yunus |
BRUNEI Darussalam’s national pencak silat athlete Norleyermah Haji Raya bagged the silver medal in the Seni/Artistry Single Female event after registering 455 points in the final of the Seni/Artistry Single Female event in the 29th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games at the Juara Stadium Bukit Kiara yesterday.
The national athlete entered medal contention after progressing to the final with 450 points in Pool ‘B’ in third place with the competitor recording the lowest score eliminated from the competition.
The result represented Brunei’s fifth silver medal in this year’s SEA Games and their 13th overall.
Norleyermah emulated the accomplishments of Basma Lachkar in wushu and Amaliah Matali in lawn bowls in winning silver in an individual event for the country.
With pencak silat originally scheduled at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, the sport garnered enormous attention to an extent that organisers had to move it to a larger venue.
An athlete is allowed to utilise space in the whole arena being the two circles but they are not meant to leave the outer circle when they are performing.
There is a grace period in the duration allowed for each competitor which is between 2:55s and 3:05s with the beating of the gong signaling the end of every performance.
The event will not feature any actual combat but weapons will be used with the competitors expressing their combat skills purely for the benefit of the judges and the crowd.
Indonesia’s Puspa Arumsari and Singapore’s Nurzuhairah Mohammad Yazid were locked in the battle for silver at the end of the pool stage.
Nurzuhairah stepped up her game and snatched gold with 463 points while Puspa claimed bronze with a score of 447 points.
Thailand’s Salini Mamu spectacularly missed out of a place in the podium despite qualifying with the highest score of 462 points in Pool ‘B’.
It was a very technically accomplished performance from Thailand’s Salini Mamu in the pool stage whose score was leaning in towards 97 to 98 points in terms of correctness.
The athlete received favourable scores highlighted by her ability and good use of the weapons and was very expressive.
At that time, it appeared that the Malaysian hope Nur Atikah Alias was distanced from her opponents with Salini’s display benefitted from the good Thai contingent from the crowd.
Puspa was expected to come in as the cream of the crop in Pool ‘B’ and had come in level with Nurzuhairah after her performance.
Puspa and Nurzuhairah finished their respective pools in silver medal contention and two points trailing leader Salini Mamu of Thailand who was in gold medal position.
As the second competitor from Pool ‘B’, Norleyermah saluted the judges, strode to the middle of the arena and composed herself for her three-minute routine.
With Norleyermah discovering her fate, the board read a score of 454 for Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Thuy, six behind Puspa Arumsari and looked to be in contention of sealing progress to the next round.
The top three from each pool advanced to the final with Nur Atikah Alias confirmed elimination from Pool ‘A’.
Laos’ Vilaysack Tunee’s performance was just inside the limit with a time of 3.03s which illustrated the fact that she was just a little way behind to her competitors.
Her routine was slightly too long and not quite crisp enough though it was still a good performance.
She ran a little long when she was taking and replacing the two weapons including the golok and the tongkat who did not quite have the precision of movement.
Unfortunately, little mistakes cost Vilaysack dearly as her low score of 443 confirmed her joining Noratiqah towards the exit door.
With Vilaysack’s result, Norleyermah confirmed her place in the finals and into medal contention in the Seni/Artistry Single Female event and joined Puspa and Nguyen.
The trio joined Cherry May Regalado of the Philippines, Nurzuhairah and Salini from Pool ‘A’ in the final.
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