By Brad Rantayy
MIRI, Dec 4: Assistant Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Sebastian Ting today congratulated two national women’s floorball players from Sarawak after the team won a bronze medal at the 30th SEA Games in the Philippines recently.
The two Sarawakians who made Sarawak proud are Ivana Sonia Beriak from Asajaya, Samarahan and Janete Kadir from Miri.
Both athletes are 25 years old, and were former Sarawak hockey players.
“We cried tears of joy after our team achieved our target of getting a bronze medal for Malaysia even though we all knew that we had lost to Singapore and Thailand,” said Janete.
For the record, 70 per cent of the Malaysia women’s floorball team for the 30th SEA Games in the Philippines are new players.
Janete is currently furthering her studies at Universiti Malaya (UM) in sport management studies, while Ivana is working as a physical education (PE) teacher at an international school in Nilai, Negeri Sembilan.
For Ivana, it was just like a dream come true, to stand on the podium and receive their hard-won medal that day.
“In SEA Games 2015 (Singapore), our team won third place, but we never got the chance to stand on the podium that year to receive our medals, and this time around we have that opportunity, as well as to make our nation Malaysia proud,” she said.
Both Ivana and Janete felt that Sarawak needed more exposure to the sport of floorball.
Ting who was met after declaring open the Malaysia World Moo Duk Kwan National clinic and Da Shim Sa 2019 at Naim South Lake clubhouse this morning said he had sent a congratulatory message to the athletes.
“I am very proud of our Sarawakians’ achievement, and have conveyed (news of) their success to our Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture,Youth and Sports,” he revealed.
However, Ting did not provide further details as to whether the Sarawakian athletes will be given any tokens or incentives for their achievement.
Five countries — Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore — participated in this year’s SEA Games floorball event which was held from November 25 until December 1.
On the final day of the floorball event, Malaysia won bronze after beating host country the Philippines, 1-0.
The golden goal was scored by Nurafarah Syahira Yusof. — DayakDaily
