Arnaz M. Khairul
arnaz@nstp.com.my
JUPHA Somnet exacted revenge on her new rival, Ummi Hamimah Mohamad of Terengganu in the girls' Under-18 200m sprint final in Round Three of the SportExcel National Junior Circuit at Kuala Lumpur Velodrome yesterday.
The 17-year-old national junior rider had to swallow her pride after being surprised by the promising Ummi Hamimah in Round Two of the series in March, as the 15-year-old got her career off with an explosive launch.
Most eyes were on the junior sprint duo, both seen as the next in line to national elite rider Fatehah Mustapa and a replacement for the retired Uracca Leow.
The seeded Jupha and Ummi Hamimah had both blown away their opposition in the earlier rounds to set up the epic final which Jupha surprisingly needed just two heats to win.
"It's good to win, but actually I wasn't really looking at it as revenge. We're both saving ourselves for the Malaysia Games track events in two weeks, which is what matters," said Jupha.
Jupha, a triple Asian Junior Championships medallist, said she had shifted to endurance events since two weeks ago, and will only ride the sprint events at the Malaysia Games due to the lack of riders in that event from her home state, Perlis.
"There are some new riders coming up, but we aren't really sure which events we'll all be doing. I'm prepared to do both the sprint and endurance events nevertheless," said Jupha.
Jupha also got her endurance career off to a winning start when she clocked two minutes 59.252 seconds to beat Pahang's Nurul Nadia Mohd Fauzi in the 2km individual pursuit final.
The surprise result of the meet came in the boys' under-16 3km individual pursuit final when little known Malacca rider Low Ji Ming upstaged hot favourite Afiq Huznie Othman of Terengganu by a whisker.
Low clocked 4:02.715s to pip Afiq Huznie, who clocked 4:02.806s to victory.
No comments:
Post a Comment