Karatekas edge Vietnam to end 12-year wait for men's kata medal

TOYOHASHI: National karate exponents ended a 12-year wait for a men's kata medal at the Asian Games after clinching the team event bronze on Wednesday.

The trio of Aiqal Asmadie, Haznil Henry and Mukhriz Mazlan downed Vietnam's Giang Viet Anh, Pham Truong Giang and Pham Minh Duc 3-2 in the bronze medal playoff at the Toyohashi Gymnasium.

Malaysia had earlier lost 5-0 to Kuwait in the semi-finals after being given a bye for the quarter-finals.

The other bronze was won by Hong Kong who beat Taiwan 3-2 in their playoff.

Macau and Kuwait, who won silver and bronze respectively at the Hangzhou Games, will face-off for the gold later in the day.

Aiqal said the trio were satisfied to win the bronze considering the strength of the field at the Asian Games level.

"We went into the playoff as if it was a final. We really went all out, we didn't pull any punches, all our body strikes hit hard," said Aiqal.

"Of course we would have loved to make the final, who wouldn't want that?

"But having said that, we are satisfied to win the bronze because this is a really tough competition. Kuwait are a very experienced side, they have been training together for over 10 years but we still fought them with everything we had.

"We have only been together for about two months, Mukhriz is new, so I think we have strong potential to go even further."

Lim Chee Wei was the last Malaysian man to win a kata medal at the Asian Games. He claimed the individual event gold at Incheon 2014.

Aiqal added that their next big mission will be next year's Malaysia SEA Games.

"Malaysia won silver through another team at the Thailand SEA Games last year so our target this time is to clinch the gold on home soil," he said.

Malaysia has already won three bronze and one gold in karate at the Aichi-Nagoya Games so far.

The squad will look to add one more medal through C. Shahmalarani in the women's kumite under-50kg category later on Wednesday. Shahmalarani is now through to the semi-finals.