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19th March, 2010
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah sabre fencer Adam Nicholas Lindbichler has made Sabah and the country proud by being part of the national junior fencing team by delivering a silver medal at the high profile Asia Junior Fencing Championship in Manila, Philippines.
The Sabah Fencing Association (SFA) was similarly elated with Adam’s contribution towards national pride and this showed his hard training with the Malaysian side while undergoing training at the Bukit Jalil Sports Institute in Kuala Lumpur has really paid off.
SFA President Alex Sham told the New Sabah Times Sports yesterday, on behalf of the association, he was indeed happy for Adam’s achievement because grabbing a silver medal in an Asian meet is no easy task.
This gives SFA, especially the coaches all the confidence in their efforts to see a gold medal haul when state fencers, including Adam make their presence felt in the coming 13th Sukma in Melaka in June.
“We are very happy with the result and look forward for Adam to spearhead our challenge in the Sukma, as we hope to do better than our last outing in Terengganu,” Alex said.
During the championship in Manila, the Malaysian team in table 16 beat host Philippines 45-35, in table 8, they beat Japan 45-25, moving into the semis, where they faced Asia’s strongest contenders from South Korea.
In an exciting and close match, South Korea was leading 40-37 in the earlier stages and in a last ditch effort by our fencers, Malaysia fought back strongly to win the clash with a slim 45-44 score to march into the final.
In the final, the fencers faced another hurdle in facing favourites Iran, in which they lost to the latter 45-35 to clinch the team silver medal, which was labeled as a very commendable feat.
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