Kim Fatt hails grassroots rise with triple gold-medal show in worlds

Youth power: Wushu’s young exponents won a total of three gold, four silver and five bronze medals.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysian wushu are certainly not short of talents and this was evident in the golden harvest at the World Junior Championships.

In the meet in Tianjin, China, junior exponents delivered three gold medals yesterday through Chlamous Shin Jay Wong, Ho Jing Thye and Crystal Wee.

And Wushu Federation of Malaysia president Datuk Chong Kim Fatt was pleased to see young talents from the states making their presence felt.

“The medallists so far have all come through state programmes, so we are encouraged to see our grassroots development moving in the right direction.

“Chlamous, Jing Thye and Crystal delivered strong performances and good scores despite limited international exposure.

“I believe we can still add more medals in the remaining events,” he said.

The 12-year-old Chlamous finished first with 8.870 points in the boys’ taijiquan (12-14) ahead of Wang Yi Cheng of Taiwan (8.826) and Royston Yew of Singapore (8.823).

It is the second gold for Chlamous in the world junior as the exponent from Melaka won the taijijian event in Brunei two years ago.

Jing Thye, 12, showed strong resilience to win the boys’ jianshu (sword) event with 8.630 points.

He won qiangshu (spear) silver on Friday with 8.386 points.

Crystal, who is from Sarawak, claimed the third gold in the doashu (15-18) competition together with Indonesia’s Terfli Meisya on 8.513 points.

It is the second medal for Crystal as she had won silver in the changquan event on Saturday. Malaysia have won a total of three gold, four silver and five bronze medals.

The other medallists are boys’ Teng Jou Xin in changquan (silver); Bryan Wee in daoshu (silver), changquan and gunshu (bronze); Darren Hiing in nandao (bronze); as well as girls’ Tan Pei Ler in gunshu (bronze), and Jou Xin in qiangshu (bronze).