Hasli wants to concentrate on Olympics

Hasli is putting all his efforts into winning an Olympic medal.

PISTOL shooter Hasli Izwan Amir Hasan will skip all local competitions to concentrate on winning an Olympic medal in the 25-metre rapid fire event at the Beijing Games in August.

Hasli, 31, believes that competing overseas will give him more confidence and consistency which would help him achieve his long life dream of winning an Olympic medal.

Although he has been averaging scores of between 580 and 585 — which are good enough for an Olympic medal — in training, he fears he could get cold feet in Beijing.

“I need to compete against the world’s best in order to be fully focused on the Olympics. Local competitions will not help as none of the local shooters can push me to the limit,” said Hasli yesterday by telephone from Langkawi where he is currently training under coach Hashim Desa.

“I decided to train in Langkawi as the state-of-the-art technology at the centre is the same as the one at the venue in Beijing. It will help me acclimatise to the different conditions at the Olympics.”
For starters, the Perak-born marksman will skip the Selangor Shooting Championships on Feb 14-17.

So far only two overseas competitions have been lined up for Hasli before the Olympics — the 15th International Rapid Fire Pistol Championships in Wiesbaden, Germany on March 4-10 and the ISSF World Cup in Beijing, China (April 10-21).

“Both events will help me evaluate myself against the best from Germany, Russia and China. However, I need more competitions to be consistent,” Hasli added.

“Although, the National Shooting Association of Malaysia (NSAM) is still in the midst of selecting several other competitions, I hope they will finalise it as soon as possible.” Hasli is the first national shooter to qualify for an Olympic Games on merit and did so when he took silver in last year’s Asian Championships in Kuwait. He was also a bronze medallist at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

New Straits Times