Wushu exponent Hosea Wong is Brunei's new sporting star as country wins second gold at 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia

Hosea Wong Zheng Yu clinched gold in the Men’s Taijijian event during the 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games at the Chroy Changvar Convention Centre. - Borbeo Bulletin/ANN

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, May 12 (Borneo Bulletin/ANN): Brunei wushu athlete ushered a new sporting hero as Hosea Wong Zheng Yu clinched gold in the Men’s Taijijian event during the 32nd South-East Asian (SEA) Games at the Chroy Changvar Convention Center, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

He contributed to making wushu’s most successful showing at a single SEA Games appearance after following up with one gold medal and two bronze.

The national star accumulated a total of 19.189 points, beating his rivals Malaysia’s Tan Zhi Yan and Thailand’s Goolsawadmongkol Katisak.

Meanwhile, a technical problem involving the scoring system marred the first day of the 2023 SEA Games wushu competition at the Chroy Changvar Convention Centre,

Based on Bernama’s observations, the scoring system at the competition venue failed to function, thus making it difficult for the jury in finalising the scores of the competing athletes and dragging every event to a late start.

Worse still, the problem saw the jurors having to take a long time to finalise the scores when they had to count manually, thus causing the athletes to wait a long time to start events.

“This situation clearly affected the concentration of athletes who were ready to start their events and had to wait for a long time and become lethargic when waiting for hours.

“They were also hungry because they hadn’t eaten, the Taolu competition should have ended earlier and Sanda to start at 3pm, but because of this, Sanda had to be moved to 7.30pm,“ said a source when met by Bernama here.

According to the source, the scoring system is not the one commonly used for wushu in any international competition.

At the same time, he informed that the medals for the wushu medal ceremonies are also not enough.

Previously, Bernama had reported that wushu faced the possibility of being cancelled following technical problems at the competition venue involving the scoring system and platform or “leitai” for the Sanda discipline, which failed to be completed five days before the competition curtain opened.

The situation forced Malaysian Wushu Federation preident Datuk Chong Kim Fatt, who is also an executive committee member of the Asian Wushu Federation, to ask for help from the Vietnam Wushu Federation to lend their Sanda platform in an effort to ensure that national athletes were not denied the chance of making an appearance in Cambodia.