PETALING JAYA: The national men's recurve archers will head to Beijing for the Olympics as the fourth ranked team in the world.
In the ranking list following the conclusion of the World Cup series, Malaysia moved up one rung. South Korea and Taiwan, the gold and silver medallists in the 2004 Athens Olympics, are in the first and second spots respectively ahead of Italy.
It is the best-ever ranking for a Malaysian team and their steady rise in the world rankings comes hot on the heels of breakthrough performances in the last two legs of the series in Europe last month.
The team bagged a first-ever silver for Malaysia behind India in the third leg in Turkey and showed it was no fluke by beating the higher ranked teams before losing to the Koreans in the final leg in France.
The three Malaysian archers for the Beijing Games are Cheng Chu Sian, Wan Khalmizam Wan Abdul Aziz and Mohd Marbawi Sulaiman. Chu Sian is the highest ranked Malaysian in the individual list at No. 13 while Wan Khalmizam and Marbawi are in 31st and 100th place respectively.
However, Malaysia coach Lee Jae-hyung said that it was more important for his charges not to lose focus as the Games drew nearer.
“To be among the top five teams is a good boost to their confidence,” said Jae-hyung, who has been in charge of the national team since 2001.
“But the world rankings will not mean anything in the Olympics. All teams will have to start from zero and perform well to get seeded status. This is where their performance on the day counts.”
He hoped that the team would qualify among the top four for the elimination rounds as that would earn them a bye into the quarter-finals.
A preliminary ranking round will be held on Aug 9 to determine the qualifiers for the elimination rounds of the individual competition. The scores of the archers will be tallied to determine the seeds for the elimination rounds of the team competition.
Only 12 teams qualify for the recurve team event, which is only made possible with the country having all three archers making the grade.
Besides Malaysia and hosts China, the other countries competing in the team event are South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, Britain, Poland, Italy, Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
“If we are in the last eight, we only need to win two matches to be assured of a medal” said Jae-hyung.
The recurve archers left for South Korea earlier this week for a two-week training stint. They will return end of this month before leaving for Beijing.
The world ranking
Top 10 teams: 1. South Korea (327,500), 2. Taiwan (303,750), 3. Italy (272,000), 4. Malaysia (264,600), 5. India (261,000), 6. Britain (226,050), 7. France (199,500), 8. Russia (186,750), 9. Usa (183,300), 10. Poland (174,300).
The Star
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