VETERAN Hasli Izwan Izhar Hasan’s hopes of winning a first SEA Games gold medal went up in smoke on a day the electronic scoring system went haywire at the shooting range in the National Sports Complex.
It is now left to the women’s pistol team of Bibiana Ng, Joseline Cheah and Siti Nur Masitah Abdul Badrin to prevent Malaysia from not winning a shooting gold for the first time in the series.
Yesterday, Hasli had to settle for two silver medals in the 25m rapid fire pistol competitions.
He was a disappointment in the team event, chalking up a 553 after 60 shots. Together with Hafiz Adzha and Khalel Abdullah, they had a total of 1,652 to finish behind Vietnam (1,666). Thailand were third on 1,637.
But Hasli salvaged his pride in the individual event after qualifying in sixth place. The younger Hafiz made the cut as the top qualifier but sunk into oblivion in the final with a score of 748.80 for fourth place.
Hasli was in the top three spots before a malfunction in the electronic scoring system resulted in the outcome of the final and official results being delayed for almost an hour.
After manually tabulating the scores, Filipino Nathaniel Pangilina Padilla was announced as the winner with a score of 753.20. Hasli was tied with Son Pham Cao of Vietnam on 749.70.
In the shoot-out, Hasli scored 48.2 against 47.7 by the Vietnamese.
“I never expected that winning a gold medal here would be this tough. I was a member of the team who won the gold in Korat (2007) but, here, I had the worst time in the team event,” said Hasli.
Besides the team gold in the 2007 Games, Hasli was an individual winner in the rapid fire event in three Games (2001, 2003 and 2005). STAR
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