PARIS WEATHER FAVOURS SYAQIERA TO PULL OFF PERSONAL BEST RECORD

PARIS, July 25 (Bernama) -- The moderate weather condition around 24 degrees Celsius is among the factors that helped national archer, Syaqiera Mashayikh, to get off to a positive start by placing herself in the top 15 in the individual ranking round of the women's recurve event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, today.

The 23-year-old athlete, who is competing on the Olympic stage for the second time, said the conditions helped her record her best performance with a record of 663 points at the Invalides against the backdrop of the city's historic monuments.

"Alhamdulillah, the weather is on our side, it's not that hot and the wind is not too strong to beat the previous personal best of 649 points, which was made at the World Cup last month," she said after the event.

Two more national representatives, Ariana Nur Dania Mohamad Zairi (633 points) and Nurul Azreena Mohamad Fazil (622 points) finished today's competition in 50th and 60th positions respectively.

The result saw the national squad take 10th position for the team event with a total of 1,918 points to challenge the Indonesian trio of Diananda Choirunisa, Syifa Nurafifah Kamal and Rezza Octavia (1,960 points) who ranked seventh in the battle for the slot for the quarter-finals this Sunday.

For the individual events, Syaqiera will meet Moldova's Alexandra Mirca on Tuesday (July 30), while Ariana Nur Dania and Nurul Azreena will each face stiff challenges from 15th-ranked archer Chiara Rebagliati of Italy and fifth-ranked Elif Berra Gokkır from Turkiye the day after.

Commenting on the challenge in the elimination round, Syaqiera said they will make more specific preparations in the next few days, after knowing the route for the knockout round.

"For the team event, we have some experience of meeting Indonesia, and we will certainly try to do better this time with more organised preparations.

"For the individual event, I have never met Mirca before, so I will fight as much as I can and accept whatever result I get. I don't set targets because I don't want to put too much pressure on myself, what we can do is prepare and God willing wait for the day of the competition," she said.

Meanwhile, Ariana Nur Dania who is the national record holder with 669 points, said nervousness of performing for the first time in the Olympics, may be the reason why she was not in her best performance today.

"Even though the weather is not too hot or cold, there is something wrong with my body condition. This thing never happened to me during training and competitions, I was also a bit surprised, probably nervousness because the health conditions were good.

"However, I take this as a lesson for the future, and it will not affect me in the individual and team elimination action after this," she said.

-- BERNAMA