KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 — The Malaysian pencak silat squad have surpassed their target by raking in half of the 20 gold medals at stake in the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games (KL2017).

The collection of 10 gold, two silver and four bronze medals exceeded the target of eight gold, four silver and six bronze set by the Malaysian National Silat Federation (Pesaka) to emerge as the overall SEA Games silat champions.

Vietnam completed their campaign in the second place with three gold, seven silver and two bronze while Indonesia were in the third spot with two gold, four silver and nine bronze.

Malaysia’s KL2017 silat medal haul also bettered the collection of the last game hosted in Kuala Lumpur in 2001 of five gold, one silver and four bronze.

Pesaka secretary-general Datuk Megat Zulkarnain Omardin said the success of silat could also be attributed to the best silat squad the federation had ever assembled.

"We dare to set such a high target because this is the best team that had undergone extraordinary training,” he told reporters.

World champion, Mohd Al Jufferi Jamari successfully defended his gold in the putra class E (65-70kg) for the third consecutive time while two other world champions Razak Ghazali and Siti Rahmah Mohamed Nasir prevailed in putra class D (60-65kg) and puteri class E (65-70kg) respectively.

Today, Malaysia garnered four gold through Muhammad Fairuz Nasir in the putra class B (45-50kg), before Siti Shazwana Ajak in the puteri class D (60-65kg),  Mohd Fauzi Khalid in putra class F (70-75kg) and Muhammad Robial Sobri in putra class H (80-85kg).

Yesterday Muhammad Afifi Nordin won the putra individual silat seni, while the duo of Nur Syazreen A Malik-Nor Hamizah Abu Hassan nailed the gold in the women’s team seni on Friday after Mohd Taqiyuddin Hamid and Rosli Mohd Sharif bagged the gold in the men’s team seni category on the first day of competition. — Bernama