| Fadhil Yunus |
BRUNEI Darussalam’s national athletes are ready to embark a challenge in the 9th Asean Para Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia which will be held from September 17-23.
A total of 11 male and three female athletes will be representing the country in athletics with most of them taking part in the throwing events while others will be competing in the sprinting and jumping events.
Two of the female participants will be taking part in the throwing events while the other athlete joining the 400m and the long jump events.
The trio of Abdul Aiman bin Zaini, Zainul Wardi bin Haji Tarip and Dayangku Nurul Hida Elenna binti Pengiran Haji Hamlin will be making their debut in the regional showpiece.
The athletes have been training extensively in the country since May 2017 following a rigid selection process in March which saw the athletes having to meet the qualifying criteria with the standard during the previous Asean Para Games in Singapore as the benchmark.
“We do the trials competitions here and we send the performance to the Department of Youth and Sports (JBS) and then the Committee will see and compare the performance our athletes produce with the standard performance from the 2015 Games in Singapore,” said athletics coach Gaston Sonkeng at the gym of the Sports Medicine and Research Centre (SMRC) yesterday.
Some athletes were close in reaching the standards set during the previous edition whilst others did better were those who won gold in Singapore.
Even the athletes who represented the country in Singapore are given the luxury of automatic selection to Kuala Lumpur and must prove that they are worthy of a place.
Most of the returning athletes took part during the trial with the only exception an athlete who missed out on the competition on medical grounds.
Set to make a defence of the gold medal included the pair of Alihan Muda and Shari bin Haji Jumaat who excelled in the individual discus and javelin throw events, respectively in 2015.
The athletics coach said that the athletes are up for the task against their regional allies during the competition.
“We are ready to challenge and whatever happen we will challenge,” asserted the coach.
He added that the athletes are also improving on a regular basis since starting the training phase adding that they would not be ready if an improvement has not been seen.
“They are improving. We monitor their performance every two weeks and last week all of their training we have to monitor to keep the athletes in confidence.
“This is what we are doing now. And we are doing this in this condition. In a competition condition, there is more pressure in every aspect,” he further added.
Verbal methods are also being used with the objective of uplifting the confidence of athletes in translating their performance from a training environment into a real competition.
“We prepare the athletes psychologically to be ready to more than what they are achieving in the training. The psychology is by speaking, by bringing athletes to trust in their capability or capacity, to show athletes that they can do, should not hesitate and not doubt on their capability.
“And then they have to resume the same thing in competition, how should you think, how you think what you are achieving before you do it,” the Cameroonian continued.
In athletics, it will be the first time that the country will feature a female athlete in the F44 category with Dayangku Nurul Hida Elenna taking part as previously it has only been male athletes taking part.
During the early stages of their preparations for Kuala Lumpur, the athletes trained once a day from May to July and since July they trained twice in the morning and the afternoon.
The other coach who is part of the athletics’ coaching setup is Haji Wahid Ismail.
The post Athletes ready for Asean Para Games appeared first on Borneo Bulletin Online.