KUALA LUMPUR: Having missed the chance to deliver a medal in her three previous attempts, national karate exponent C. Shahmalarani is determined to clinch gold at the 19th Asian Karate Championships in Malacca from July 21 to 23.
The 25-year-old lass, who retained her SEA Games -50kg women’s crown in Cambodia in May, said she couldn’t get on the podium due to a few mistakes in the previous editions but had learned from the defeats to be more confident this time.
“I am definitely targeting a gold. It is a long dream after participating in this tournament for a few years. With Malaysia hosting the tournament, I think this is the time to bring cheers to our supporters,” she told Bernama when met after her training session here.
However, Shahmalarani is aware of tough challenges from the best of Asia’s exponents, including two-time world champion Miho Miyahara of Japan, Asian Championships and Asian Games defending champion Gu Shiau-shuang of Chinese Taipei and Kazakhstan’s Moldir Zhangbyrbay.
To challenge for the title, Shahmalarani would be banking on the experience gained in the prestigious Karate1 (K1) Premier League in Fukuoka in early June and an intensive three-week Egypt training stint under new national head coach Tamer Abdelraouf Mohamed Mourssy.
“The K1 tournament gave us the opportunity to test ourselves with the best in the world, while in Egypt we trained and had friendly matches with their national athletes and world champions. Egypt is among the top karate nations, having produced many world champions, so it’s a great trip to raise our game.
“In karate, everything is decided in that three minutes (of competition), so whether the opponent is world or Asian champion, if we are strong during the fight, we can beat them. So, I am adopting that mentality,” she said.
Meanwhile, Tamer Abdelraouf said the training stint in his home country turned out to be an eye-opener for the national karatekas on the extreme training of the Egyptians, akin to Special Forces training.
“Before going to Egypt, they saw me like a monster (for tough training regime), but after going there, they view me like an angel. They faced a lot of challenges there in terms of hard training and adapting to new situations and time zone.
“For me, it was very useful in our preparations for the Asian Championships and Asian Games in September. We will repeat this experiment a few more times, probably in other countries similar to Egypt like Morocco and Tunisia,” he added. -Bernama