Silver lining for Lee Ronn as Malaysia finish strong at wushu event

Ending on a high note: Lee Ronn (back row, left) with other wushu team members. Malaysia ended the World Junior Championships with four gold, six silver and five bronze medals to finish sixth overall.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia wrapped up their World Junior Wushu Championships campaign on a high in Tianjin, China, with teenager Lee Ronn adding a silver medal to the tally.

The 17-year-old from Melaka scored 9.166 points to finish second in the boys’ youth (15–18) gunshu event, narrowly behind Hong Kong’s Lei Wan Chun (9.186).

It marked Lee Ronn’s second silver of the meet, having also finished runner-up in the changquan event.

His performances have also strengthened his case for a spot at the Youth Olympics in Dakar later this year, adding to his growing reputation after winning two gold medals in daoshu and gunshu at last year’s Asian Junior Championships.

Malaysia ended the campaign with four gold, six silver and five bronze medals to finish sixth overall.

Hong Kong topped the standings with a 13-7-6 haul, ahead of China (13-4-0), Indonesia (9-11-7) and Vietnam (7-2-4), while former champions Iran were notably absent.

Wushu Federation of Malaysia president Datuk Chong Kim Fatt described the result as respectable but warned against complacency.

“We are happy to see that the majority of medals won came from exponents who are still attached to their state training programmes,” he said.

“But it’s an eye-opening experience for us as we can see most countries stepped up their youth development programmes because of the sport’s inclusion in the Youth Olympics for the first time.

“The countries see the value in investing in youth development.

“Hong Kong, for example, have four foreign coaches at the youth level alone and we can see the big improvement in standards. Even Brunei also have more than one foreign coach now.

“On the other hand, Malaysia have one foreign coach handling the elite and back-up programmes, so there is only so much we can do. We will try our best to keep the good results going,” he added.

The four gold medallists for Malaysia were Chlamous Shin Jay Wong in the boys’ junior category for taijiquan (12-14), Ho Jing Thye in boys’ junior jianshu, Crystal Wee in the girls’ youth (15-18) daoshu and Teng Jou Xin in the girls’ youth jianshu.