| The Star :: Monday,
August 3, 2009 THE Sri Kuala Lumpur in Subang
Jaya will be upgrading their facilities at the gymnasium to
spur their primary school pupils to pick up more advanced
moves in artistic gymnastics. Besides
including it as part of their physical education session for
their Year One to Year Five pupils, the centre’s chief
coach Mike Ng acknowledged the school’s supportive role
to improve on the training facilities for the young trainees.
“Last year, they provided a spring
floor. Recently, they also purchased an Olympic standard parallel
bars set. They will be constructing a landing pit over the
year-end school holiday. And we can look forward to introducing
more complicated techniques to the more competent trainees
without compromising on the children’s safety when they
execute the routines with higher difficulties,” he added.
Surprise winner: Tan is the boys' special
group individual overall winner
Recently, the youngsters produced respectable
results at the school’s one-day inter-house artistic
gymnastics competition.
The fifth edition of the meet drew 120 participants
in four categories — Year One, Year Two-Three, Year
Four-Five and special group for boys and girls.
The boys featured in three events — floor
exercise, vault and parallel bars — while the girls
also competed in three disciplines — floor exercise,
vault and balance beam.
Ng said they were delighted that the big pool
of newcomers performed beyond expectations and the top three
winners in the respective categories also chalked up high
scores in their routines.
“For the boys, the parallel bars was
the toughest event. They had to maintain a stable L-shaped
position balancing on the bars and execute the 360-degree
turn. They also found it hard mastering the forward roll technique,”
he added.
In the girls’ special group, nine-year-old Selangor junior
trainee Nur Sabrina Mohammad won all the three events and extended
her domination in the school competition to four years in a
row.
After picking up a silver (beam) and two bronze
(vault and team event) medals in the girls’ Under-12
category at this season’s Malaysian School Sports Council
(MSSM) meet, Sabrina said she is hoping to make a breakthrough
to qualify for the Malaysia Games (Sukma) in Malacca next
year.
In addition, eight-year-old beginner Sean Kong
also made a strong impression by winning the floor exercise
and parallel bars to emerge as the individual overall champion
in the boys’ Year Two-Three section.
“He has only been training seriously for
three times a week over the past six months and he is showing
encouraging progress,” said Ng.
Meanwhile, the coaching panel also took the
opportunity to identify four boys and four girls to represent
the Petaling Perdana district at the upcoming Selangor Schools
Sports Council (MSSS) Mini Olympics meet scheduled at Shah
Alam on Aug 14 and 15.
After stamping his mark clinching the individual
overall top spot in the boys’ special group at the recent
school competition, nine-year-old Tan Jiajun will be spearheading
the challenge along with the trio of Kieren Singh Gill, Shaun
Lin and Mar Kai Sheng for the Under-10 competition.
The four gymnasts in the girls’ line-up
are Noor Zarith Ikma, Serena Elizabeth Merican, Rhyon Lu and
Shalini Ai-lin.
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