Winter sports events thrill the crowd at SEA Games

PETALING JAYA: The organisation of winter sports events held for the first time in the history of the SEA Games had attracted public interest to the skating rink at the Empire City, Damansara Perdana here to witness the thrill offered by the sport.
At the 29th SEA Games this time, three winter sports events were contested involving nine gold medals of which six were for the 'short track speed skating', two gold medals for figure skating and one gold for ice hockey, all of which would be held or had taken place at the Malaysian National Ice Skating Stadium (MyNISS)
Ice hockey had started on Aug 20 with the final match being held tonight while the 'short track speed skating' would be held on Aug 29 and 30, and 'figure skating' on Aug 26 and 27.
Bank officer Siti Aminah Abd Rahman, 29, told Bernama that she was thrilled to watch the ice hockey which she had watched on television screen all this while and played by foreign athletes.
An employee of a private firm, Muhammad Haikal Abdul, 26, said he had gone to Empire City with only one purpose, that is, to support the struggles of the national athletes to compete for the best position in winter sports.

Muhammad Haikal, who came from Seremban, Negeri Sembilan said the interest to come personally to the match venue and support the national team came from watching the news of the Malaysian ice hockey team beating Indonesia 10-3 on television.
"From there, I could see the Malaysian athletes were full of energy and I saw that the game needed strong mental resilience as well as the physical strength to block the movement of the opponents," he said.
For Liew Chie Cheng, 40, he said his presence at the Empire City was to watch for himself the sophistication of the skating rink which has been described as the best in South-east Asia.
"At first, I was puzzled why the events were not held at several locations in the country which already had such facilities. But after looking at the venue myself, I was impressed and it is clearly different from the other rinks which my children persuaded me to go to for skating. In fact, the space for spectators is so large like the ones I had seen at the rinks for NHL (National Hockey League) in Europe," he said.
Although the matches were held on working days, the public interest was obvious when the venues were filled by spectators who had come to watch the ice hockey matches.
R.Arese Nesi, 16, said he had rushed to the venue immediately after school to watch ice hockey which was being held for the first time in the history of SEA Games.
"I am not a fan of this sport but I have waited a long time to watch the game live to give my support to the national players," said Arese Nesi. — Bernama