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Sports

Tuesday October 6, 2009

Taekwondo exponents target two golds at world championships

By RAJES PAUL

PUTRAJAYA: Taekwondo exponent Lyonel Tan Ooi Keong has been travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh for training every weekend for the last three months.

And he hopes that all his sacrifices will pay off in his fourth appearance in the world (ITF) championships, which will be held in St Petersburg from Oct 12-17.

The 25-year-old personal finance consultant of a bank is among the 10-member Malaysian squad, who will leave for Russia on Saturday for the biennial championships.

“What is important to me is to stay focused and keep myself busy in upgrading my techniques in this sport. Other challenges are part and parcel of the game,” said Ooi Keong.

For the album: Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek poosing with the Taeokwando Team at his office in Putrajaya Monday after the flag handing over ceremony.

“My preparation has been good. I won a bronze medal (in the individual pattern event) in the 2003 edition in Australia and hopefully, I can do better this time.”

Two other members of the team, Michelle Lim and Goh Foo Cheng, also travel weekly from KL and Johor respectively to the training base in Ipoh.

Manager Wan Koon Seng praised the team’s commitment and said that they had set a target to win two gold medals.

“For the first time, we are sending a full team to the world championships. The team are physically and mentally well prepared for the tasks,” he said after a flag-handing ceremony at the Sports Minister’s office yesterday.

“Seven of the team members are from Perak and we it was best to have our training base in Ipoh.

“The exponents from East Europe are very strong but we hope our team will be able to achieve the two-gold target.”

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