SARAWAK WANTS TO END LONG WAIT AS BOXING CHAMP IN SUKMA XXI
KUCHING, April 20 (Bernama) – The 21st Malaysia Games (SUKMA XXI) will come as the best venue for Sarawak to end its long wait to become the overall champion in boxing, Sarawak Amateur Boxing Association (SABA) president Datuk Rahman Lariwoo said.
He said based on the record that he had, Sarawak had never emerged as the champion for boxing ever since the inauguration of the nation’s biggest sporting event back in 1986.
“Hopefully this year, with the home ground (advantage), we will set the record as the overall boxing champion,” he told reporters at the SUKMA XXI boxing training centre at Sarawak Stadium here, today.
For the sporting event, he said Sarawak initially pin their hopes on 16 young pugilists, 12 young men and four women, who have been trained intensively since last year to prepare for the games from Aug 17 to 24.
“To be the overall champion, at least six golds (need to be won) and I really believe and have my own confidence that we can achieved it,” he said.
Rahman, who is also the Malaysian Boxing Federation vice-president, said beside undergoing centralised training, earlier this year, the boxers would be participating in the third Sarawak Open Championship from May 6 to 10.
“After the Sarawak Open, I will bring them to Trang Sports School in Thailand, after that to Tanjung Pinang in Indonesia where the best boxers from Kalimantan are stationed and lastly to Baguio City in Philippines before SUKMA XXI starts,” he said.
He said the team would also be joined by several other Sarawak boxers to compete in the Perak Open Championship in Ipoh in June.
In the last SUKMA held in Kuala Lumpur in 2022, Sarawak garnered two golds, two silvers and a bronze through boxing.
-- BERNAMA
