Chong Wei Feng has finally ended Malaysia’s 14 year drought of gold medals in the SEA Games badminton event by downing fellow compatriot Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif during the finals yesterday.
The last time Malaysian won a gold medal in the SEA Games was during 2001, courtesy of Roslin Hashim.
Wei Feng dominated the scene by ousting Arif Latif calmly in two straight sets with scores of 21-8 and 21-9 just within 29 minutes.
According to Wei Feng, the success proved his skills and capability alongside silencing his doubters. It had also erased his disappointment of being knocked off in the early stages during the Myanmar SEA Games.
“Few months ago, the World Championships issue pressured me. Therefore, this victory is meaningful to me because it proves my ability of winning even though I sustained an injury a while back,” said Wei Feng as quoted from Kosmo.
“Today (yesterday), I thought that Arif did not perform well, he was not playing his best. He made a lot of errors. I actually did not think about the gold medal, I entered the court with a mindset of giving my best but the victory was indeed a meaningful one for the country.”
Meanwhile, Arif claimed that his game play was affected due to the strong wind blowing from the air-conditioner. He explained that because of the wind, he was not able to predict the direction of the shuttlecock and that set an influence over his rhythm.
“Wei Feng played well. He took control of the court and played without fault. I could not level to that,” said Arif.
“Nonetheless, I am satisfied with the silver medal because previously I had predicted that I would only make it to the semi finals so being in the finals is a bonus for me.”
Arif expressed that he will be putting his focus on the next championships to get as many points as he can to qualify for the Olympics next year.
Photo credits: Zee News
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