KUALA LUMPUR: The national archers ended their campaign at the Asian Championships with a bronze medal in the men's recurve team event in Dhaka yesterday.
It was Malaysia's first medal in a recurve event at the biennial tournament since 2011 when Khairul Anuar Mohamad won the men's individual gold before leading Malaysia to another gold in the team event.
In the last championships two years ago in Bangkok, Malaysia also returned with a bronze through the women's compound team.
The National Archery Association of Malaysia only sent the men's recurve archers to Dhaka and the trio of Haziq Kamaruddin, Akmal Nor Hasrin and Khairul did not disappoint in the team event.
After losing 6-0 to a strong South Korean team in the semi-finals, Malaysia edged China 5-3 in the bronze medal playoff by winning 56-56, 55-53, 53-55, 58-56.
In the earlier rounds, Malaysia overcame Philippines and Japan 5-1.
Akmal, Malaysia's best performer among the recurve men archers in 2017, could have had another bronze medal but for an agonising 6-4 defeat to China's Wang Dapeng on Wednesday.
With the bronze medal playoff all square after four sets, Dapeng claimed the fifth 29-28 to deny Akmal a spot on the podium.
Akmal was earlier beaten by South Korea's 2013 world champion Lee Seung-yeun, who was also part of South Korea's 2016 Olympics gold medal winning team, 7-3 in the semi-finals.
Khairul was Malaysia's next best performer after reaching the last-16 where he lost 6-4 to second seeded South Korean Lee Woo-seok while Haziq and Ikram Joni exited in the second round.