KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 5 — Shooter Nur Suryani Mohd Taibi has clearly regained the trust of the National Shooting Association of Malaysia’s (NSAM) when her name is listed in the national shooting squad for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games from April 4-15.

NSAM Honorary Secretary Adam Tee today confirmed that Nur Suryani was among the seven shooters listed for the Gold Coast (Australia) Games, and the decision was made based on her performance, including after winning the gold medal at the Selangor Shooting Championships in December last year.

"She is a talented shooter and has shown a good performance. She is back in the squad and NSAM accepted her based on her performance because we see shooting as shooting,” he told reporters after attending a working committee meeting with the National Sports Council here today.

Nur Suryani, along with Muslifah Zulkifli and Nur Ayuni Farhana, had in October last year, filed a lawsuit against the National Sports Institute for dropping them from the Podium Programme allegedly without a legitimate reason. The issue was later settled out of court.

Nur Suryani, who contested at the 2012 London Olympics, is now set for her fourth Commonwealth Games after winning bronze medals in 2006 Melbourne, 2010 New Delhi and 2014 Glasgow editions.

During the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games (KL2017), the 35-year-old delivered bronze in the 50m rifle three positions event.

Also in the list for Gold Coast are four KL2017 gold medallists – Johnathan Wong Guanjie (10m air pistol), Muhd Ezuan Nasir Khan (50m rifle prone), Benjamin Khor Cheng Jie (double trap) and Alia Sazana Azahari (25m pistol) with Hasli Izwan Amir Hasan and Bibiana Ng Pei Chin.

Adam said although 22 shooters qualified for the Gold Coast Games, the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) only approved seven places as the Malaysian contingent were only allocated a quota of 98 athletes for individual sports.

"We have a very good chance to bring home a gold medal. All our shooters are very likely to get into final round, after that it depends on their mental strength and how good are they to win medals.

"Originally, 22 names were proposed based on qualifying scores, but OCM only gave us seven places. We hope to get more places, as Abraham Eng Wei Jin and Nur Izazi Rosli, the two young and talented shooters, are also capable of getting into final round,” he said.

It is learnt that NSAM is also planning to send the shooters to Australia a week earlier than the Games fixture, for preparation and venue familiarisation.

Adam said with the number of shooters for Jakarta Palembang Asian Games in Aug 18 to Sept 2 was likely to increase, the under-performed shooters at the Commonwealth would be replaced for the Asian Games.

"We have yet to decide the number of shooters, but so far no quota for Asian Games. Most likely the same shooters will be selected. I heard few countries are appealing to include team events because now we only have individual events, which means maximum of 20 golds contested, so we could not decide the number now,” he said. — Bernama