THE national contingent have a good chance of winning their first gold medal at the Philippines Sea Games in four sports today — breakdancing, polo, figure skating and wushu.
And, if everything goes according to plan, it should come at high noon from men’s breakdancer Sam Jee Lek in Dance Sports.
If not, we still have three more shots.
Defending champions Malaysia will face hosts Philippines in the polo final at the Inigo Zobel Polo Facility, Calatagan, in what is set to be a finely-balanced affair.
Both teams head into the final having tasted defeat once in the round-robin competition. The Philippines lost 8 1/2-8 to Brunei in their opening game and beat Malaysia 8-5 1/2 on Tuesday.
But national polo team manager Datuk Zekri Ibrahim is not perturbed as he was pleased with the way Malaysia bounced back from that setback to beat Brunei 8-5 1/2 on Thursday.
“More so since we were using borrowed horses,” he said.
“We had less time to prepare compared to other teams. But we showed very good fighting spirit.
“I believe our never-say-die attitude is our greatest strength.”
Zekri credited the strong performances of Tengku Ahmad Shazril Ezzani Tengku Sulaiman, Amran Selamat and Abdul Rashid Hasnan as the key to their run to the final.
National figure skater Julian Yee is on track to retaining the gold in the men’s event after topping the short programme with 63.400 points at the Megamall Ice Skating Rink in Manila on Friday.
However, he has very little room for error as home favourite Christopher Caluza is just one point behind.
Julian, who finished 25th overall when he made his historic debut at the Winter Olympics in South Korea last year, was far from happy with his performance on Friday, admitting that “I made a number of mistakes”.
So, it’s crucial that he’s at his best in the free skating segment, which will decide the medallists, today.
Malaysia also have a chance to bag gold in wushu today through the experienced duo of Wong Weng Son-Yeap Wai Kin (men’s changquan), Loh Choon How (taijiquan) and Sydney Chin (women’s taijiquan) at the World Trade Centre in Manila.
Weng Son-Wai Kin won gold and silver at the 2017KL Games in different disciplines while Choon How bagged gold in taijiquan at the World University Games in Macau last year.
But Malaysia’s wushu exponents, break dancer Jee Lek and even Julian, for that matter, cannot afford to leave any room for error as subjective sports at the Sea Games are notorious for biased judging in favour of host athletes.
Hopefully, that won’t be the case in the Philippines.