Yee Chun Leong
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
IT was the closest of margins for national pencak silat athlete Nur Wasiqah Aziemah Rosihan.
She narrowly missed out on the gold medal in the women's tunggal event at the inaugural Nusantara Championship 2025 in Singapore over the weekend.
Contested in a round-robin format, Wasiqah recorded a 2-1 win-loss record to finish runner-up at the Heartbeat@Bedok.
The heartbreak came in her opening match where she was edged out by Malaysia's Nur Syafiqah Hamzah.
Both scored identical 9.910 points but it was her timing that let her down with a differential of one second from the allowed time of three minutes.
Wasiqah then bounced back with a 9.915 – 9.910 win against Thailand's Ketwalee Leechort.
The national exponent ensured to take home the silver medal after overcoming Nurin Insyirah Md Aidil of Singapore 9.925 – 9.910.
Wasiqah was devastated by the result and as was hoping to finish top of the podium.
"I lost because of the extra one second (during my performance) in the match," said Wasiqah in an interview with BruSports News.
"I could have won in terms of the score as my standard deviation was lower than that of my opponent's," she added.
"But in terms of the rules, if there is a tie then then the time will be looked at if it is exactly three minutes. That one second really hurt my feelings," continued the 23-year-old.
Meanwhile, it was a similar situation for Md Ali Saifullah Hj Md Suhaimi as he finished fourth in the men's tunggal event.
He managed a same score as his Thai opponent only to lose on time also by one second.
Next on the calendar for the pencak silat team is the 9th Asian Pencak Silat Championship scheduled for 23rd – 31st July in Vietnam.
