Boom ahead for poomsae

PETALING JAYA: A golden harvest may be in store for the national poomsae exponents at the Vietnam SEA Games if their strong performances at the just concluded World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Goyang, South Korea, are of any indication.

Nurul Hidayah Abdul Karim and Jason Loo Jun Wei pulled off their best performance at the world meet by punching their way to the silver medal in the mixed pair Under-30 competition.

The 2019 Philippines SEA Games gold medallists, were ranked fifth in the preliminary round. Only the top eight pairs entered the knockout stage and Nurul-Jason turned up the heat by beating the United States in the quarter-finals.

They went on to beat arch rivals Vietnam in the semi-finals before losing to Taiwan in the final.

It is the second medal for the 23-year-old Nurul.

On Friday, Nurul and her younger sister Nur Humaira together with Lim Jia Wei won the bronze medal in the women’s team Under-30 category.

The one silver and one bronze haul are the best ever outing in the world meet for the poomsae exponents.

The silver medal by Jason and Nurul is only the third medal by the Malaysian taekwondo team in world championship history.

Before Goyang, Chew Wei Yan took bronze in the 2018 edition in Taipei in the men’s individual category.

Nurul and Jun Wei have now improved the chances of grabbing the SEA Games gold despite Vietnam dropping the mixed team event.

Malaysia will have to focus on striking it in the mixed team and individual events where Nurul Hidayah and Jason will be contending.

National taekwondo poomsae coach Jin Jun-beom was not ready to commit their SEA Games chances given that poomsae is a subjective sport but he reckons that his charges could have done even better in the world meet.

“After almost two years of no competitions, we just relied on our training,” said Jun-beom.

“We were confident that we can give a good fight in this competition, and everyone did their best,” said the South Korean coach.

“But I am very happy because the athletes won medals at the world championships after two years of not competing.

“The athletes performance was good but if we had participated in more competitions before, we could have done better.’’