KUALA LUMPUR: National Kumite exponent H. Sureeya Shankar is aiming to punch down Asian Championships and Asian Games gold medals after his recent success in the prestigious Karate1 (K1) Premier League in Fukuoka, Japan.
The 21-year-old has gained confidence mainly after beating Asian Championships defending champion Abdullah Shaaban of Kuwait 8-0 in the men’s -60kg category repechage round to bag the bronze medal in Fukuoka last month. Abdullah is also the 2018 Asian champion.
In the group-level match, Sureeya Shankar stunned Kazakhstan’s Kaisar Alpysbay 12-9, who is the three-time K1 gold medallist, apart from two silver and three bronze medals in the tournament.
Sureeya Shankar, who started practising karate when he was six, said he wants to first focus on winning the Asian Karate Championships to be held in Melaka from July 18 to 23, before moving towards the highly anticipated Hangzhou Asian Games in China, from Sept 28 to Oct 8.
“I want to win the gold since I am able to beat the former champion, Abdullah, who ranked higher than me. I need to put in more effort and hard work, and with a home-ground advantage, I hope I can secure the title in my fourth attempt.
“I am slightly nervous about the Asian Games as this will be my debut. In the last edition, my senior S. Prem Kumar won the bronze medal, so I need to do better to go for gold as he will be fighting in the -67kg,” he told to Bernama.
Commenting on the K1 success, Sureeya Shankar said the hard training regime under new head coach Tamer Abdelraouf Mohamed Mourssy from Egypt, had helped him to master new techniques to be able to challenge greater opponents.
“I am improving the techniques I was not good at or don’t know before. The training is really hard now, so my stamina had also increased. He is really helping me to learn new skills.
“During the K1 Premier League, the coaches fully analysed the opponents’ style and feed the necessary information to me with few plans. I am very happy to execute it well to become a medallist,” he said.
The Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM) Sports Science undergraduate was also thankful that his parents had enrolled him in the karate class in his neighbourhood at Sentul when he was younger.
“I was interested to join karate after seeing my friends and cousins winning matches. At first, I just wanted to try, but later turned as a passion and karate really helped me to grow better in life,” he added. – BERNAMA
