Only one silver to show in recent Terengganu Sukma

KUCHING: The State judokas’ failure to win gold medals at the recent Sukma XII in Terengganu has been put down to a lack of maturity.

Another stumbling block was the organisers tampering with the weight categories, forcing the Sarawakians to fight in much heavier divisions.

Ideally, a judoka needs at least four to five years of constant training to mature and as such, a sports support system should be introduced to encourage budding judokas to stay in the sport long enough to mature and succeed in tournaments like Sukma.

“Judo is not like gymnastics or diving where the athletes can be as young as seven or eight. It is a combat sport and if you lack long periods of training, you can get seriously hurt.

“My main problem is after training judokas for, say, two years, they start leaving to find work or pursue further education,” State coach K. Thevaraj said.

“If you train for two years, you cannot expect to perform like someone who has trained for six years. In judo, you need the experience accumulated in training over the years.

“Maturity is very important. Lacking it can cause an exponent to get seriously hurt and suffer long-term injuries,” he said.

Sarawak sent 10 judokas to the Terengganu Games — three girls and seven boys. Two of them, Christina Sebarang and Mohd Madzihi, won medals in the 2004 Sukma 2004 where judo was last held.

The rest of the team were new, including James Thomas, Shahirah Kamil, Nalu Uma, Aaron Lim, Ting Chiong Woon and Maximillian Law who all had two years of training and Yee Yiong who only trained for one year.

The Terengganu Sukma organisers also did not follow the standard international categories, combining the weight divisions to give their athletes an advantage. They reduced the usual 16 weight categories to eight.

Christina and Madzihi were expected to win medals but Sarawak judo officials were doubtful about the duo’s ability to deliver after the changes.

Thevaraj said he was not surprised at the final outcome – only a silver medal from Madzihi.

Madzihi met national heavyweight champion Ching Chiang Fui, 30 kilos heavier, and Christina also faced a similar uphill task.

According to Thevaraj, Christina kept fighting but failed to overcome her heavier opponent.

For the next Sukma, Thevaraj said he had five athletes still eligible but one — James Thomas – is looking for a job and the team may lose him.

The other four are in their final year of secondary schooling — Form Five and Six — they will likely go the way of most of their predecessors — leaving the sport to look for a job or for further studies.

Judokas like Brenton Sim and Rick Alen Helmie, both 15, are still too young for the next Sukma.

“I’m developing them but my dilemma is I don’t seem to be able to retain and train the young judokas to their full potential.

“In combat sports, nothing can replace experience and if you review the result of this Sukma, you can see exactly that.”

Thevaraj said in the eight categories, the medal winners had taken part in the 2004 Sukma.

Three of them won gold in Terengganu but all placed first in 2004.

Eight of them are SEA Games athletes while four of the eight won medals in the last Games in Korat.