MEMORABLE MALAYSIAN SPORTWOMEN

 
MARINA CHIN
Age: 55
IT was her combination of winsome looks and speed that made Chin such a star on the track and off it.
She was the national women’s 100m champion as well as a top hurdler in the late 1970s. During her career as a national athlete, she won seven SEA Games gold medals and a gold and two silver medals in the Asian track and field competition.
She is most remembered for winning both the 100m and 200m hurdles at the 1977 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.
She was further named Sportswoman for the Year two years in a row, 1976 and 1977.
Chin, who was actively involved with the National Sports Council to draw up strategies for athlete training, is currently the principal of the Bukit Jalil Sports School.
Appointed to the post in 2007, she is the first former national athlete to head the school.

DATUK NICOL ANN DAVID
AGE: 28
She is the most successful woman squash player in the world. At 16, when most of her peers were immersed in either their studies or social activities, she won the 1999 British Junior Open, where she was champion for both the Under-17 and Under-19 categories, the SEA Games (senior and team categories champion), and the German Junior Open (Under-19 champion).
In the same year, she became the youngest winner of the Women’s World Junior Championships in Antwerp, where she beat compatriot Leong Siu Lynn in just 30 minutes.
Today, after numerous wins at national and international levels, Nicol David is ranked world number 1 in women’s squash, the first Asian woman to achieve this. In 2008, she became the youngest person ever to be conferred a Datukship in Malaysia, the Darjah Setia Pangkuan Negeri from her home state of Penang.
She is currently one of the most recognised and admired sportswomen in the country.

 
WAN ZALEHA RADZI
AGE: 47
In 1985, when TV3 started broadcasting news, a fresh-faced broadcast journalist made her debut alongside Mahathir Lokman and captured the hearts of Malaysians for many years after that. Wan Zaleha Radzi’s combination of beauty and intelligence is well-remembered to this day.
She is currently doing what she loves best: riding and organising equestrian events in Kuala Lumpur. An accomplished equestrian herself, she had been in competitive sports since she was 15.
Under her company Asiapromote Ventures Sdn Bhd, she and her husband, Peter Imran Winton, has brought the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) Five-Star KL Grand Prix to Malaysia since 2003. Malaysia is the first Asian nation to stage the world’s highest-rated horse show-jumping event.
She wants to get the Malaysian public excited about the sport and also promote it as a Malaysian event for equestrians and horse enthusiasts as well.


 

DATUK M. RAJAMANI
AGE: 67
The “Queen of the Tracks” was the first Malaysian woman to win a gold medal in any sport at the Asian Games when she won the 400m in record time at the 1966 Games.
From 1964 to 1968, she also won seven gold medals in two SEA Games and represented Malaysia at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.
Rajamani was awarded the coveted National Sportswoman of the Year Award two years in a row, in 1966 and 1967.
Following an accident at the age of 24 in 1968, Rajamani retired from athletics and took up coaching, and saw the emergence of sprint star Marina Chin under her guidance.
 

SHALIN ZULKIFLI
AGE: 33
Shalin Zulkifli started bowling at nine and in 1994, she became the youngest player and first Malaysian to win the Ladies Open of the Kent Malaysian All-Stars. This professional 10-pin bowler and former Asian number one has raked up numerous wins in national and international tournaments, winning the hearts of her countrymen.
She holds a degree in Sports Science that specialises in Sports Psychology and Coaching. Her latest project is the baby she’s expecting with her husband, Azidi Ameran. In fact, she was pregnant during the recent Asian Games in Guangzhou. The women’s team, led by Shalin, won one bronze medal.
 

SYLVIA NG
AGE: 61
Ng made history at the 1978 Commonwealth games in Edmonton, Canada, by becoming the first Asian woman to win the badminton singles gold, as well as the first Malaysian female athlete bag a gold in the history of the Games. She was also the only player to win a gold medal for the country at the 1975 SEA Games. She was honoured as Sportswoman of the Year twice, in 1975 and 1978, and won the national badminton champion title five times before she retired in 1980.
In 2004, Ng was inducted into the Olympic Council of Malaysia Hall of Fame.

MUMTAZ BEGUM JAAFAR
AGE: 49
Negri Sembilan-born Mumtaz was one of the nation’s best woman athletes. She won the gold medal in the 100m dash at 1981 SEA Games in Manila.
She was named the Woman Athlete of the Year and Selangor Sportswoman for 1981. After a thigh injury in the same year, she never regained her former glory.
She retired in April, 1986 after eight years of competition.
She has served as vice-president of the Malaysian Amateur Athletic Union (MAAU) and was the Woman Sub-committee chairwoman of MAAU. Currently, she heads the National Athlete Welfare Foundation, formed in 2009 to provide better welfare for the former athletes.
 

NURUL HUDA ABDULLAH
AGE: 38
She was just 13 and with her shy smile and mope of curly hair, she was the country’s first swimming star. The granddaughter of Singapore President Wee Kim Kee, Nurul debuted at the 1983 SEA Games at that age.
She holds the distinction of being the first female swimmer in Southeast Asia to break the five-minute mark for the 400m individual medley and to break the 60-seconds mark for the 100m freestyle. She further won seven gold and one silver medals in the 1985 SEA Games, and in the process broke six SEA Games records.
The following year, she bagged two silvers and two bronzes in the Asian Games. Nurul Huda was named Sportswoman of the Year in 1985 and 1986, and, in 1987, became the first Malaysian to win an IOC Trophy. In 1989, she bested herself when she bagged eight golds at the SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur, after which she retired.

Source : Thestar