BY James Kon

Representing the Brunei Darussalam National Olympic Council (BDNOC), His Royal Highness Prince Haji Sufri Bolkiah, President of BDNOC attended a post-mortem meeting examining the performance of national athletes at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, England on Wednesday.

National weightlifter Mohammad Nashrul bin Haji Abu Bakar smashed the national and his personal record after lifting a combined 227 kilogrammes (kg) in the weightlifting – 61kg category.

Mohammad Nashrul and his coach were not in the Sultanate as both are currently training overseas and attended the meeting virtually.

Meanwhile, in the lawn bowling women’s pairs, Esmawandy Brahim and Norafizah Matossan managed to claim victory against Canada 15-12 in their first game, but lost the remaining two matches to Australia and Wales with scores of 24-14 and 27-8.

The lawn bowling men’s fours team comprising Haji Amli bin Haji Gafar, Bahren Abdul Rahman, Haji Osman bin Haji Yahya and Mohd Hazmi bin Haji Idris lost all their matches and placed at the bottom of the competition.

The team lost to Malaysia in the first round 21-8, then Wales by 28-2 and finally Norfolk Island 17-4 in the third round.

Chef de Mission of Brunei Darussalam’s contingent to the XXII Commonwealth Games 2022, Pengiran Siti Amal Jariah binti Pengiran Matjinen delivered the report highlighting that national athletes will benefit from continuous training, providing experience to athletes and full time professional coach, the need of performance analysts, specific nutrition profiling and a training centre.

She added that the national weightlifter displayed improved performance by smashing the national record while the lawn bowl teams did not achieve their goal of competing for medals.

One of the areas of interest raised was on the importance of nutrition for athletes where the food served at the Commonwealth Games came with calculated calories.

To educate national athletes on the importance of nutrition in the long run, acting specialist in sport medicine Dr Essam bin Mohamed Shaaban said, “We have been giving lectures at schools to raise awareness among the young generation.”

He added, “Our main problem in sport medicine is the popularity of food containing high cholesterol, for example, where everyone choose to have chicken rice while ignoring the importance of having vegetables and fruits.

“During the centralised training for the last Southeast Asian Games, we replaced cut fruits with whole fruits like apples and oranges. The athletes would take the fruits back to their room to eat later.

“We need to raise awareness among parents to provide their children with nutritional balance of vitamins and minerals as well as a variety of protein rather than depending solely on chicken.”

Permanent Secretary (Sports) at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports Pengiran Mohd Amirrizal bin Pengiran Haji Mahmud, who is the chair of the national athletes’ assessment and selection committee, added, “This has importance on the overall planning for the sports and athletes.

“The purpose of nutrition also depend on the sport itself and the individual body weight.”

Meanwhile, lawn bowl athlete Esmawandy Brahim shared the recommendation that lawn bowl athletes can compete in more events like female single and male triple events that were held earlier than women’s pair and men’s fours events so that they can get more competition exposure and also get use to the competition grounds.

-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin