KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 6 — Malaysian waterski wonder Aaliyah Yoong Hanifah topped the tables in qualifying for open women tricks at the Asian Championships for waterski and wakeboard yesterday and will be top seeded going into the final in Rabbit Lake, outside Bangkok, tomorrow.
Aaliyah amassed 5,650 pts, against the second best score of 4,680 by Jiang Hui of China, and 3,290 by Dini Imaniar of Indonesia.
Open women tricks has been the preserve of 12-year-old Aaliyah, the youngest skier in the open field since winning the Asian crown in 2013 and remains the strongest of three disciplines in waterski.
But Jiang, 11 years older than the Malaysian, turned the tables on Aaliyah when she won the Asian Oceanian Championship in Perth and the Asian Beach Games in Phuket in quick succession in October and November 2014.
On the preliminary scores, Jiang will have all to do to keep her hold on the Asian title.
Aaliyah, as Malay Mail Online learnt, has been consistently tricking around her personal best of 6,500 pts in practice all week.
“It went OK, especially in slalom, but I was not applying myself well in tricks,” Aaliyah, the SEA Games double gold medallist told Malay Mail Online of her day’s performance.
“I had been doing 6,500 pts easy all week. But doing it in a tournament is another thing.”
As Aaliyah has been building strength and mass in her young frame at the National Sports Centre, this Asian championships is the first in which she is competing in all three disciplines, adding slalom and jumps to the tricks for which she has been winning international open events since she was eight years old.
In the preliminary round in slalom yesterday, Aaliyah achieved a personal best score in women open slalom with 1 buoy at 55km/h 13m line, an improvement on the score she set at the SEA Games in Singapore in June.
Aaliyah finished fifth to be among the top six who will fight for honours in the final on Sunday.
Aaliyah is one of five Malaysians who have qualified for finals competitions thus far, including three other Yoong siblings.
Her younger siblings Aiden, 10, and Adam, eight, qualified in the boys under-17 tricks yesterday, on 3,060 pts and 2,050 respectively.
Team captain and eldest brother Alex made the cut yesterday in the men open tricks when he finished ninth.
It has been a surreal week for former Formula One driver Alex. Last Saturday in Shanghai, he retained his Audi R8 LMS Cup title by a mere point.
“It’s been quite hard to switch from racing to waterskiing over the last few days,” said Alex.
“They require completely different mentalities.
“Racing is more aggressive especially against your opponents. While waterskiing is very Zen as you compete against yourself more or less.”
But Alex is happy with how he performed first time out on Rabbit Lake, “considering we had not earmarked this tournament as one to peak for”.
“The men’s competition is very strong, and it has shown me, however much I have improved, there is much more work I’ll need to put in for the next one.”
Malaysia will host the next SEA Games in 2017.
Team manager Norzeela Suleiman said the objective in Bangkok is modest.
“We are counting on two golds, coming from Aaliyah in the open women tricks, and from Arianna in the U17 girls tricks,” she said.
“Every other medal coming from any other team members will be a bonus as we are still a very young team contending against Asia’s giants.”
The eight countries taking part are China, Korea, Japan, Lebanon, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia.
The other members of the team are Cheah Hsu Ann, 26, and Ariana Eimer in wakeboards.
