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Combined martial arts event opens BorneoPost Online | Borneo , Malaysia, Sarawak Daily News » Sports - New 2 Borneo

Combined martial arts event opens

Posted: 23 Nov 2013 11:57 AM PST

by Matthew T. Umpang reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on November 24, 2013, Sunday

KUCHING: Fans are in for a big treat as the Sarawak Martial Arts Championships featuring six martial arts opened yesterday.

The state-level competition, organised by the State Youth and Sports Ministry, is participated by such associations as the Sarawak Lion Dance and Wushu Association, Silat Seni Gayong Malaysia (Sarawak branch), Rumpun Silat Sarawak, Kuching Tang Soo Do Association, Sarawak Silambam Association and Kuching Muaythai Association.

Assistant Minister of Youth Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah was present to officiate the opening ceremony at State Youth and Sports Ministry complex.

A self-professed avid martial arts fan himself, he admitted that he was excited to see such an event combining many arts being organised.

"Every martial art is unique and I hope all martial arts practitioners from the various and different types of martial arts continue to respect each other," he said.

At the opening ceremony he also witnessed exhibition matches from silat, wushu and muaythai.

The wushu competition takes place at the State Youth and Sports Ministry complex while most others have theirs at the Batu Lintang Teacher's Training Institute (IPGBL).

Muaythai boxers, on the other hand, will have their events extended until next week with all bouts scheduled to take place at Kubah Ria.  According to State Youth and Sports Ministry director Abdul Harris Ishak, the event is organised to further develop martial arts in the state and country and uncover more quality talents.

"Martial arts such as silat is a Malaysian heritage which originated in this part of the world, the Malay Archipelago. There is also a need for us to get more people to learn it," he added after the opening ceremony.

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Datuk Lee Chong Wei strolls into finals of HK open

Posted: 23 Nov 2013 11:55 AM PST

KUALA LUMPUR: Olympic silver medallist Datuk Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia made light work of Thailand's ace Boonsak Ponsana when the former sidestepped Boonsak for a slot in the finals of the Hong Kong Open badminton championship, today.

Staged at the Hong Kong Colliseum, the men's singles semi-final match lasted  34 minutes with the end result, 21-12, 21-7, according to www.tournamentsoftware.com.

In the early minutes of the first set, Boonsak tailed Chong Wei closely on  points but the more adept world number one kept tight control of the court,  forcing Boonsak into making mistakes.

In the second set, Chong Wei upped his game and wasted no time in gaining a huge point advantage, leaving Bonsak dazed.

Top seed Chong Wei will meet with the winner of the match between compatriots, Sony Dwi Kuncoro and Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia, scheduled after 6.30pm today.

The 31-year-old father of one is now gunning for his third title of the championship. — Bernama

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Nine teams to vie for Under-19 Isuzu Cup

Posted: 23 Nov 2013 11:44 AM PST

KUCHING: To underscore its seriousness in developing youth talents, Football Association of Sarawak (FAS) has announced an inter-division youth tournament for next month.

This was revealed by FAS deputy president Datu Mohamad Abu Bakar Marzuki at a press conference here yesterday.

FAS in collaboration with the Samarahan Football Association (PBBS) are organising an Under-19 Inter-Division tournament to kick off on Dec 15.

"Isuzu Malaysia are the main sponsors of this competition and the competition will hence be called the 2013 Isuzu Cup Sarawak U-19 Football Competition," Abu Bakar stated.

According to him, the main objective of the tournament is to select players to represent Sarawak in the President's Cup and the U-19 Youth Cup organised by the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).

"We hope to see exciting new talents play in this tournament hence we do hope the teams will send in their finest under 19s possible," he said.

All matches will take place in Samarahan division area with the Kota Samarahan Sports Complex and Unimas Sports Complex among the venues chosen to host the tournament.

The one-week competition will culminate in the final to be held at the Unimas Sports Complex Football Field on Dec 21 at 3.30pm.

Eight divisional football teams plus one team from the Sarawak State Sports Council (MSNS) are expected to participate.

Apart from host Samarahan and Young Crocs (the MSNS team), the other teams include Kuching, Limbang, Miri, Kapit, Sibu and Sarikei.

Betong, Sri Aman and Mukah divisions will not compete this year. Also present during the press conference was FAS vice-president and PBBS president Haidel Heli and other FAS and PBBS officials.

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Fresh All Blacks look to make history against Irish

Posted: 23 Nov 2013 11:33 AM PST

DUBLIN: A much revamped New Zealand side will bid on Sunday to achieve what no team in the professional era has done and win all their Test matches in a calendar year by beating Ireland at Lansdowne Road.

Coach Steve Hansen has introduced seven changes to the starting line-up from the one that last Saturday avenged last year's defeat against England at Twickenham, but he is confident the fresher faces can round off the perfect year.

Their opponents — coached by New Zealander Joe Schmidt — face an awesome task.

Not only have they never beaten the All Blacks, they lost 60-0 the last time they met in Hamilton last year, but also the manner in which they lost 32-15 to Australia last Saturday has had some pundits commenting that they will be served up as a 'Sunday roast'.

No international team in the professional era has enjoyed a perfect calendar year, with the All Blacks side led by Wayne Shelford — that won all seven of their Tests in 1989 — the last major nation to achieve the feat when rugby union was still an amateur sport.

However, New Zealand themselves came close to it again when they won 11 games and drew one under John Hart in 1997.

Hansen, who was assistant coach to Graham Henry when the All Blacks won the World Cup on home soil two years ago, is adamant that even with the radical changes, and without the experience of injured duo Dan Carter and Tony Woodcock, the side can create history.

"In the last nine weeks, we've gone round the world twice, and this will be our seventh test in nine weeks," said the 54-year-old, whose side will be bidding to make it 14 wins from 14 matches.

"We've had a big, physical game against Argentina, another physical performance in Johannesburg, a lot of running and chasing in Dunedin, then France was physical and England was physical.

"It's just the accumulation of a lot of travel and game-time. We need fresh legs and we've got ability sitting there fresh, so why not use them?"

A lot of eyes will be fixed on Carter's replacement at fly-half, 24-year-old Aaron Cruden, but assistant coach Ian Foster has few doubts about his ability to shine.

"Cruden can be very satisfied with his year as he has started a fair amount of tests and run the games really well, especially the first Test of the Rugby Championship against Australia (All Blacks won 47-29)," said Foster.

Foster, who was brought on board by Hansen after the World Cup triumph, said that neither complacency nor fatigue could be deployed as excuses if they slip up on Sunday and claimed making history was not on their minds. — AFP

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Pacquiao confident of victory

Posted: 23 Nov 2013 11:22 AM PST

MACAU , Macau: Filipino boxing great Manny Pacquiao declared he was back to his best as he weighed in comfortably under the 147 pound limit on Saturday ahead of his comeback fight against American Brandon Rios.

Asked if his army of fans in Asia would see the Pacquiao that lost both his last two fights in 2012 or the ferocious destroying force of 2006, his last ring appearance on the continent, "Pac-Man" oozed confidence and said it would definitely be the latter on Sunday morning.

"This fight is going to be different," he told HBO television immediately after tipping the scales at 145 pounds.

Pacquiao, who will be 35 next month, has put himself though two months of intense physical preparation, "like when I was young", in General Santos City in the lead-up to the World Boxing Organisation International welterweight championship bout.

"This is one of the longest training camps I had in my boxing career," a smiling Pacquiao said. "We did our best training and we did it like when I was young," added the only man to have world titles at eight different weights.

His Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach agreed. "This was the happiest and most productive camp I have had with Manny in years," Roach said.

"Based on our last workout, I don't see how Rios makes it past the fourth round."

Pacquiao, a Filipino congressman, had to deal during training camp with the tragic distraction of Super Typhoon Haiyan tearing through his country on November 8, leaving more than 5,000 people dead or missing.

"I cried when I saw what had happened," he admitted earlier this week. "To all the people and the families who have been affected by this storm, the typhoon: This fight is for you."

Pacquiao enjoyed huge support from a large Filipino presence at the Cotai Arena for the 7:30 am (2330 GMT, Friday) weigh-in as chants of "Manny, Manny" rang around the auditorium.

"I'm so happy that the fight is in Asia and very close to the Philippines," he said and paraded a T-shirt on stage reading "WBO Rescue Team – Yolanda (Haiyan) Relief".

Rios came in just under the welterweight limit at 146 1/2 pounds, a pound and a half heavier than Pacquiao who is two inches shorter than the American.

The former lightweight world champion has never fought at welterweight but said the step up was no problem.

"I feel I'm 100 per cent of my weight now. I didn't have to take any off," said Rios after stepping on the scales.

"How am I going to beat him?" he said. "My heart and my balls. I'm hungry. I want that title.

"Here's a message to Freddie Roach: Supposedly I'm a bum. I can't make the weight. I'm a fat loser — you'll see in the ring tomorrow."

Fight promoter Bob Arum told AFP that it had been 38 years since his Top Rank organisation had held such an oddly-timed weigh-in, designed to cater to TV audiences in the US.

"The last time we did something like this early in the morning was Muhammad Ali v Joe Frazier in 1975," said Arum, referring to the "Thriller in Manila" which has gone down in history as one of the greatest heavyweight contests of all time.

"And what a fight that turned out to be." — AFP

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Indian media sees new chess world order after Carlsen win

Posted: 23 Nov 2013 11:11 AM PST

NEW DELHI: Indian media Saturday said a new world order had dawned after local favourite Viswanathan Anand was outplayed by Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen in the battle for the world chess title.

Carlsen, the 22-year-old reigning world number one, won three games and forced a seventh draw on Friday to achieve the victory mark of 6.5 points in Anand's home city of Chennai, the capital of southern Tamil Nadu state.

Under the headline 'New world order', the Mail Today newspaper said Anand's defeat "signalled the change of guard at the top of the chess world".

"His (Carlsen) brand of fighting, aggressive chess may also mark a new era," the English-language daily said, wondering if Anand would "try and earn a right to challenge Carlsen late next year".

Anand, who at 43 is 21 years older than his rival, lost the title he has held since 2007 despite a last-gasp fight in an attritional 130-move game on Friday that lasted four hours and 45 minutes.

Carlsen played four draws early in the tournament to counter Anand who could never recover from blunders he made in the crucial fifth game.

The Times of India said that with Anand's comprehensive defeat, an era had ended in chess.

The paper said it was "poetic justice" that Carlsen heralded the new era in a country where the game of 64 squares has its origins.

"It took Anand 20 years to travel between GM (grandmaster) title (1988) and undisputed world title (2008). Carlsen has done it in less than 11 years," the daily said.

The Indian Express said with Carlsen's triumph, "the world of chess is on the threshold of a generational change".

"It was not just Carlsen's dominance… but what he represents that has fans excited," it wrote.

Carlsen missed by a few weeks becoming the youngest world champion, a record set by his one-time coach Kasparov in 1985.

The last Westerner to hold the world champion title was US legend Bobby Fischer who relinquished it in 1975.

The tournament was widely reported across Indian media which aired the matches live on television, building an unprecedented hype in a country where cricket is the number one sport.

The vernacular press also gave wide coverage to the championship with daily and detailed reports of their battle featuring on the top of the sports pages.

The Express attributed some of the excitement to the youthful personality of Carlsen, which it said, set him apart from past champions.

"Young and marketable, Carlsen is the antithesis of the traditional image of the reclusive and recondite chess genius," the newspaper said in a front-page report.

Quoting Russian legend Garry Kasparov, it said: "A win for Carlsen is also a win for the chess world." — AFP

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