{"id":11305,"date":"2021-09-04T17:29:53","date_gmt":"2021-09-04T09:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=11305"},"modified":"2021-09-04T17:29:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-04T09:29:54","slug":"liek-hou-creates-history-as-first-paralympic-badminton-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=11305","title":{"rendered":"Liek Hou creates history as first Paralympic badminton champion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TOKYO, Sept 4 — Six-time world champion Cheah Liek Hou made history today when he became the first Paralympic badminton men\u2019s singles champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 33-year-old world number two was in devastating form as he crushed his nemesis and Games favorite\u00a0Anrimusthi Dheva of Indonesia 21-17, 21-15 in the men\u2019s singles SU5 (physical impairment) final at the Yoyogi National Stadium today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Badminton is making its debut at the Tokyo Paralympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first game, world number one Anrimusthi made a series of errors to hand Liek Hou a comfortable 5-0 before the Indonesian closed the gap to 5-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After taking a commanding lead of 11-5 at the interval, Liek Hou\u2019s performance took a dip, allowing the Indonesian to pull level at 15-15. That woke the national shuttler from his slumber as he regained his composure before a powerful smash earned him the final point to win the first game 21-17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Liek<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The second game was a much closer battle, with both shuttlers fighting neck-and-neck before Liek Hou took a slim 11-10 lead at the interval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, Liek Hou was wide awake as he showed great resilience to absorb the Indonesian\u2019s attacks before sealing a 21-15 win and bag the coveted gold medal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liek Hou then fell flat on the court savoring this golden moment before getting up and heading straight to his coach Datuk Rashid Sidek to celebrate a stupendous victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also helped Liek Hou stretch his winning streak in Tokyo Paralympics Games to five straight matches, including three wins in Group B earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier today, the 33-year-old staged a great fightback to upset Fang Jen-yu of Chinese Taipei 15-21, 21-10, 21-16 in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kuala Lumpur-born Liek Hou\u2019s win means that Malaysia has now won two gold medals, following powerlifting ace Bonnie Bunyau Gustin\u2019s heroics in the men\u2019s 72-kilogram (kg) event on Aug 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The national contingent has been set a three-gold target for the Tokyo Paralympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malaysia have also bagged two silver medals, so far, through Bonnie\u2019s team-mate Jong Yee Khie in the 107kg event on Monday (Aug 30) and national boccia player Chew Wei Lun, who lost 4-2 to defending champion David Smith of Great Britain in the mixed individual BC1 (physical impairment) category on Wednesday (Sept 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Jen-yu\u2019s hopes of a bronze medal were dashed when he lost 16-21, 9-21 to Indonesian Suryo Nugroho in 41 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— BERNAMA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO, Sept 4 — Six-time world champion Cheah Liek Hou made history today when he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","category-sports"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55.png",724,391,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55-300x162.png",300,162,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55.png",640,346,false],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55.png",640,346,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55.png",724,391,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55.png",724,391,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55.png",724,391,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55.png",724,391,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-04-at-17.26.55.png",720,389,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Nation<\/a> Sports<\/a>","tag_info":"Sports","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11307,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11305\/revisions\/11307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}