The duo of Faustina Woo Wai
Sii (R) and Lee YingShi competing
in the 3rd World Junior Wushu
Championships in Singapore in
December 2010. Brunei's wushu
team will begin their SEA Games
campaign today.Picture: BT file

We are already a week into the 26th Southeast Asian Games but Brunei are still without a gold medal.

Much hopes were placed on Silat who had captured one gold and three bronze medals in the previous edition of the games but three bronze was all they could manage this time round.

The wushu competition will begin today and they may now be the ones with the best chances of striking gold at the biennial event in Jakarta.

The duo of Faustina Woo Wai Sii and Lee YingShi had delivered the country's only silver medal at the 25th SEA Games in Laos in 2009 in the duilian (duo sparring with broadsword and spear) event.

Will the team be able to do one better this year?

Deputy Secretary General of The Wushu Federation of Brunei Darussalam (WFBD) Calvin Ang definitely thinks so.

Ang had previously said that he is confident of the abilities of the Bruneians and is going for gold.

National wushu coach Li Hui is, hwoever, just hoping for the best from his wushu exponents.

"The pressure is always there in competition there is no need for any extra pressure. The athletes are training daily extra hard here (in Jakarta) in the mornings and afternoons. They will go out there and try their best to win some medals," Li told The Brunei Times yesterday.

"Training and competition period is always different. But they are feeling confident and hopefully we can pull through with some good results. It will be hard to say because we face strong competition from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam," added the Chinese national.

The trio had stayed in China for 50 days of intensive training right after the 6th Asian Junior Wushu Championships in August where they won a gold medal through the partnership of Lee and Karyn Ho Chia Yin in the duilian event.

It was the second out of three intensive training programmes as they were part of the six athletes who trained in Shanghai for 40 days at the end of April.

That was also right after the Xinjiang International Wushu Tournament in Shanghai, China.

The wushu exponents campaign will begin with Woo in the nanquan (southern fist) event and Ho, who is making her debut at the Games, in jianshu (swordplay).

All three will see action on Saturday with both Lee and Ho taking part in changquan (long fist) while Woo will compete in nandao (southern broad sword).

On Sunday, Ho will take action in the qiangshu event with Woo in nangun (southern cudgel).

The competition will culminate with the duilian event for Woo and Lee on Monday.

Courtesy from Brunei Times