PHNOM PENH, May 11 — National athlete Andre Anura Anuar still managed to defend the gold in the men’s triple jump event at the 2023 SEA Games, here, today, despite just recovering from a heel injury.

Andre managed to record a distance of 16.06 metres (m) on the fifth attempt, confirming his second consecutive gold in the event at the Morodok Techo National Stadium, today.

The silver medal was won by the Philippines’ Ronnie Auxilio Mapilay (15.74m) and his teammate, Mark Harry Aloto Diones (15.70m) took the bronze.

The athlete from Sabah admitted that he was relieved to be able to win gold even though he had only just started jumping yesterday after undergoing the rehabilitation process following his injury two weeks ago.

"For almost two weeks I didn’t work on any jumping technique and had to rest for a while to recover my heel, there was some pressure, not from the opponents but pressure to fight the injury.

"Before this, I only trained in the gymnasium, but yesterday I just started jumping to get the feel and rhythm before competing today,” he told reporters here.

Although he did not succeed in completing his mission of breaking the record of 16.77m set by Muhammad Hakimi Ismail in the 2017 edition in Kuala Lumpur, Andre was happy that he was able to ensure that the triple jump gold still remained in Malaysia’s hands since the 2015 edition in Singapore.

Another national representative, Muhammad Izzul Haniff Mohd Raffi, finished the competition in seventh place with a jump of 15.38m.

Meanwhile, Wan Muhammad Fazri Wan Zahari bagged the bronze in the men’s 800m event clocking a time of 1 minute and 53.86 seconds (s), with the host country’s Chhun Bunthorn (1:52.91s) winning the gold and Duc Phuoc Luong from Vietnam (1:53.34s) taking the silver.

The women’s category saw two national athletes, Savinder Kaur Jogindr Singh (2:15.77s) and Hizillawanty Jamain (2:16.92s) finish sixth and seventh respectively.

Vietnamese athlete Nguyen Thi Thu Ha (2:08.55s) grabbed the gold, while her compatriot Thi Ngan Bui (2:08.96s) bagged the silver and the bronze went to Singaporean, Chui Ling Goh (2:09.15s). — Bernama