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Monday July 6, 2009

Puvaneswaran not giving up spot despite hamstring injury

By LIM TEIK HUAT

PETALING JAYA: The juniors are snapping at his heels but karate exponent R. Puvanesaran refuses to give up his place despite coming down with a hamstring injury in February this year.

And the gritty exponent hopes to mark a successful comeback to competition at the KOI World Cup, which will be held in Kuching from July 25-27.

Any injury would have a serious repercussion for a 34-year-old exponent, even more so when he is a member of the elite national squad.

Puvaneswaran:'I still feel I am able to contribute to the country for at least another two year.'

But the gritty Puvaneswaran, who suffered the injury on the right leg in training, said that he did not let the injury get to him.

“I continued to do very light training as I did not want my fitness level to go down. It took me nearly a month before I could start practising again,” said the father of three children.

“I’m lucky in the sense that there are not many assignments for the national team in the first half of the year and I have enough time to get back to full fitness.

“I still feel I am able to contribute to the country for at least two years more and this is what pushes me to fight hard to keep my place in the elite squad.”

His perseverance paid off when Puvaneswaran was entered for the men’s below 65kg individual kumite competition of the World Cup.

A place in history beckons for Puvaneswaran if he retains the title as he would be the first five-time gold medallist for Malaysia. Besides last year, Puvaneswaran also came out tops in 1997, 2001 and 2004.

“No Malaysian has taken gold for the fifth time but I don’t want to put unnecessary pressure on myself as this is only my first competition for the year,” he said.

“I will use it to gauge the areas where I need to improve as there are other important competitions coming up after that. Winning a medal will come as a bonus.”

Puvaneswaran will also be looking forward to defending his titles in the Asian Championships in China in September and the Laos SEA Games in December.

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