PARIS, Sept 8 – The silver medal won by defending champion Datuk Abdul Latif Romly in the men’s T20 (intellectual disability) long jump at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, was surely a bitter pill to swallow for the national contingent.
The result saw the national contingent fail to meet the target of four golds that had been chanted before, even though national powerlifter Jong Yee Khie is still with a chance to add to his personal medal collection in the men’s 107 kilogram (kg) category at the Porte de La Chapelle Arena before the Paris 2024 games draws down its curtain tomorrow.
What was even more painful for Latiff Romly and the Malaysian contingent during the competition at the Stade de France was watching Matvei Lakushev who competed under the Neutral Paralympic Athlete ticket snatch the gold in his final attempt with a record of 7.51m.
Until that final attempt by Lakushev, Latif Romly, the gold medal winner in the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 editions was looking destined for gold after leading the rest of the field with a jump of 7.45m which was also his season’s best.
The distances registered today by the lad from Perlis was also well below his Paralympic Games record of 7.60m set during the Rio 2016 games to win the gold or the World Record of (7.64m) that he had set during the 2018 Asian Para Games in Indonesia.
