Petanque Hope To Strike Gold In Laos After Four Misses

KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 (Bernama) -- After four near misses, the national petanque team hope to strike at least a gold medal at the Laos SEA Games in Vientiane, come December.

Petanque Federation of Malaysia (PFM) secretary Kamaluddin Niat said with a young set of players, comprising mainly of players currently preparing for the 2010 SUKMA in Melaka, PFM hope to achieve the desired results.

"Under the SUKMA programme, players are going through intensive training and have been very consistent. Since many of the senior players are now working and not been training regularly, we hope to send the young guns to Laos," he told Bernama when contacted here Thursday.

He added that during the recently held national open petanque championships in Terengganu, young players undergoing training under the SUKMA programme had performed far better than their more experienced senior players who had represented the country before.

"That is a very positive development and hope the structured intensive training for the young players would help deliver the results in Laos after missing out on a gold in four previous SEA Games," said Kamaluddin.

Kamaluddin said PFM would hold a trial next month to pick the best players for the Laos SEA Games to be held from Dec 9-18.

Since the sport was included in the 2001 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games programme, Malaysia had managed to win just two silver and eight bronze medals.

-- BERNAMA