PHNOM PENH, June 3 — Wheelchair cager Muhamad Atib Zakaria could not hide his happiness even though he only won a bronze medal in the men’s 3x3 basketball event at the 2023 Asean Para Games (APG) today.
The 30-year-old, who is making his third appearance at the biennial Games after the Singapore (2015) and Kuala Lumpur (2017) editions, said the success of winning the bronze was meaningful as all of them were working and had limited time for full-time training, adding that they only started working out on May 10.
“I am very satisfied with how we played today because we won against the host (Cambodia). Especially sacrificing our time when we are busy with our careers,” he said here today.
Earlier, coach Lim Ming Lip’s men trounced the home team 17 - 8 at the Elephant Hall Two of the Morodok Techo Stadium.
The victory was achieved by Muhammad Atib, Freday Tan, Karthik Kana Pathy, Muhammad Azzwar Hassan Assari, and Razali Cantik.
Meanwhile, Lim attributed their easy win to the strategy they used against the hosts.
“I was targeting the final in the 3x3 event, but since that was not possible, I told my boys to do their best to at least bring back the bronze.
“I am satisfied with how the team played because we corrected some shortcomings exposed in the group stages yesterday,” he stated.
Malaysia won two of their four group-stage matches yesterday (beating Cambodia 12 - 6 and Indonesia 2 - 0 in sudden death; losing to Thailand 12 - 18 and 7 - 8 to the Philippines) to finish third and book a spot in the third-fourth playoff for bronze today (Malaysia won silver at the 9th APG in Kuala Lumpur).
The 2023 APG will be officially opened tonight.
— Bernama
