BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
Thursday, MAY 24, 2012

THE Sultanate's best runners will look to go faster at the 2012 Taiwan Open Athletics Championships.

The duo of Maziah Mahusin and Ak Hafiy Tajuddin Pg Rositi will be competing in the women's and men's 400-metre events at the May 25-26 competition.

Both are London 2012 Olympics hopefuls and are currently undergoing intensive training under national athletics coach Isidrol del Prado.

Going through two sessions a day, the pair has only one target in mind in Taiwan.

Maziah, who is a recipient of the London 2012 Olympic Scholarships (with national swimmer Anderson Lim being the other), finished the women's 400m with a time of 1:01.14 during the 7th Southeast Asian (SEA) Youth Athletics Championships late last month.

She is aiming to go faster and break the one minute barrier at the Taipei City Stadium.

"I want to do better than my last competition in Singapore. I want to break my best time and hopefully I can do it," Maziah told The Brunei Times before departing the Sultanate for Taiwan yesterday.

"I feel myself getting better during training and I've been constantly improving. I hope I can bring the same kind of performance into competition," she said.

"I'm feeling confident because training has been exhaustive and painful. It is normal now because I've gotten used to it and I know that I can do it," she added.

According to Ak Hafiy, his best time for the 400m event is at 49.50s which he set at the Brunei Time Trials last month. He feels that he has improved over time and is ready to take up the challenge.

"I'm going there to set a personal record. I believe that I can do it because we have been going through intensive training," said the lanky runner.

"I feel that there has been good improvement in my speed because last time we only train once a week compared to two now," said the 20-year-old.

Accompanying the duo to Taiwan is team manager Hj Yahya Sirat and he is hoping to get the best out of the athletes.

"We're going there in hopes of achieving new times. This is considered the pre-competition stage, leading up to the Olympics," said Hj Yahya.

The Brunei Athletics Association (BAA) Secretary-General also revealed that they are targeting two other competitions in Sri Lanka and Vietnam next month.

Brunei will be competing at the July 25-Aug 12 Olympics courtesy of the universality places which the world governing bodies for athletics and swimming have opened to countries that have no qualified athletes.

The Sultanate can nominate two athletes one male and one female for each sport.

However, it is understood that the Brunei Amateur Swimming Association (BASA) chose not to nominate any female swimmer as none met the criteria.

The country did not send any female swimmers to the 14th FINA World Swimming Championships in Shanghai last July, a prerequisite to swimming in London.

The Brunei Times

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