Brunei's Alif Yahya and
Md Zainul Abidin Abu
Zaini delivered the gold
medal in the pencak silat
men's doubles event at the
BIMP-EAGA Friendship
Games on Saturday in
General Santos City,
Philippines. Picture:
Courtesy of the Ministry
of Culture, Youth and
Sports

Brunei's pencak silat team lived up to promise by winning one gold and one silver medal at the ongoing Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-East Asia Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Friendship Games which ends today at General Santos City, Philippines.

One of the six national teams in action at the seventh edition of the biennial meet, the pencak silat team won gold in the men's doubles event through Alif Yahya and Md Zainul Abidin Abu Zaini and silver through Anisah Najihah Abdullah in the women's singles on Saturday.

The Sultanate has also secured a bronze medal in tennis and table tennis.

The contingent's chef de mission Hj Abd Malik Hj Mohammad had previously said he was expecting the pencak silat team to deliver at the Games, hardly surprising considering they were the country's top performers at the last edition of the biennial meet in 2008 - where they collected five of Brunei's 12 gold medals.

Completing the list of 12 pencak silat exponents at the Games are Abd Azim Dukahar (men's singles), Md Arrsyafaiq Hassan, Md Amirul Azmi Hj Ali and Afiq Aiman Hj Aine (men's trio), Nur Faezzah Latif and Siti Nurul Nuramalina Norsaidi (women's doubles) and the women's trio of Nur Azimatunnaemah Simat, Qistina Athirah Zainal and Nur Syafiqah Hj Md Seffar.

Although the news of the country's gold medal must make for smiles among the pencak silat community, the fact that there were only two teams competing in the event takes some lustre away from the win.

Brunei won the event with 567 points while Zamboanga were second with 482.

The three-team women's tunggal category saw Makassar claim gold with 436 points. Anisah Najihah finished with 432 points while Zamboanga's representative took third with 428.

Saturday's other results saw Mohd Aiman Abdullah and Ak Md Rafiuddin Izzul Islam Pg Hj Junaidi lose their men's doubles match 7-5, 6-4 to Sarawak though it was still enough for them to win bronze.

The duo fared no better in Sunday's singles category, with Aiman losing 6-4, 5-7, 6-10 to Palawan's Francisco Sanntos and Ak Md Rafiuddin Izzul 6-1, 6-1 to Mindanao's Rubylito Saga.

The country's only representative in table tennis, Winnie Lim shared bronze in the women's team event with Sabah's Danielle Chong as the losing semi-finalist.

The country's sole swimmer at the Games, Jeremy Joint Riong was fourth in the men's 200m butterfly, clocking 2:26.98s, failing to beat his personal best of 2:24.44s. He came much closer to improving on his personal best of 28.66s in the 50m butterfly though, where he came in seventh with a time of 28.80s.

The only positive on Sunday came from the sepak takraw team, which won their regu (team) category match 15-6, 15-13, 15-7 against Mindanao after losing their opener 10-15, 15-10, 9-15, 3-15 to South Sulawesi.

Courtesy from Brunei Times