MANILA, Dec 1 — Just a few minutes after Malaysia’s wushu exponent, Loh Choon How delivered the country’s first gold in the 30th SEA Games, the women’s floorball team bagged the bronze medal.
Malaysia defeated hosts, the Philippines on golden goal rule, after both teams were tied without any goal for the entire three periods in the bronze medal playoff, at the UP College Of Human Kinetics Gym.
This meant the winner had to be decided on sudden death extra time, where Malaysia surprised the host through Nurfarah Syahira Md Yusof’s goal to return home with the bronze medal.
Malaysia started the campaign with two 2-8 defeats to Thailand and defending champions, Singapore before winning 8-2 against Indonesia and tied 4-4 with Philippines in the round robin fixture.
When the only time floorball was contested as a medal event at the 2015 Singapore SEA Games, Malaysia had to return home empty handed because only three teams participated then.
Modern floorball began to gain popularity since 1986 in Sweden and the sport is now played in more than 80 countries. Each team has five players and a goalkeeper and matches are played in three 20-minute periods. — Bernama
