Brunei fencers in training in this
file photo. Brunei will send four
fencers to the Asian Youth Games.
Picture: BT file
National fencing coach Rocky Poerawinata will be sending four fencers to next month's 2nd Asian Youth Games in Nanjing, China.
Md Hazeeq Asmui'e Md Fadzilah and Muhd Aizuddin Yaqin Hj Yahya will be taking part in the foil individual discipline while Mohd Haziq Asahrin and Muhd Anaqi Danish Asahrin will be representing the country in the sabre individual discipline.
The four athletes are all from the Talent Identification (TID) programme, an initiative of the Sports Coaching and Development Unit under the Department of Youth and Sports.
They have been training every week since last year and continue to follow the same routine during the month of Ramadhan, with their training involving a mix of sparing, physical and mental training six times a week.
"I am preparing all the athletes for the SEA Games that will be held in Brunei in 2019 (and) we have been training like this since last year for any event that comes up before the SEA Games," Poerawinata told The Brunei Times.
"I have all the best athletes from the TID programme for my long term athlete development training and we will do our best in China.
"I know the athletes will fight hard during the tournament and they will be able to gain experience from challenging at this level," said Poerawinata.
The Indonesian added that the team didn't take part in the inaugural Asian Youth Games in Singapore in 2009 because fencing wasn't contested.
This year's fencing tournament will take place from August 13-23 and the fencers will be competing from August 19-22 at the Nanjing International Expo Center.
The sabre individual event will take place on August 19 and the foil individual discipline will be on August 21.
The tournament has increased in participants from 1,321 athletes during the Singapore inaugural edition in 2009 up to 2,391 this year.
Organisers have also increased the number of events being offered from 90 in the previous competition to 122.
A total of 16 sports will be contested in Nanjing; athletics, badminton, basketball, diving, fencing, football, golf, handball, judo, rugby, shooting, squash, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and weightlifting.
