Jonathan secures second gold as Malaysia denied a clean sweep
Jonathan secures second gold as Malaysia denied a clean sweep
KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Jonathan Sianturi won the gymnastics men's artistic individual all-round for his second gold medal at the 21st Southeast Asian Games on Monday, stealing a bit of Malaysian thunder.
Seasoned Jonathan collected 53.3 points to beat Sattra Suwansa of Thailand and home favorite Loke Yik Siang.
Jonathan, who took a break to get married after the 1998 Asian Games, came back at the SEA Games with strong performances on the rings and the vault, edging out Sattra, who had led until the last apparatus, the high bar.
A beaming Jonathan said the win buoyed him to aspire to greater heights.
"I want to reach more than just the SEA Games," he said. "I want to be the Asian champion, maybe even the Olympic champion. Every athlete has a dream - to compete in the Olympic Games."
Indonesian gymnastics team manager Sudjihadi Reksowiredjo told The Jakarta Post that Jonathan had a great chance of winning more golds in six individual events on Wednesday.
"I hope he will perform well in pommel horse, pommel jump and parallel bars," Sudjihadi said.
Malaysia came one, two, three in the women's artistic gymnastics event, but were stripped of the bronze medal under rules barring any one country from making a clean sweep.
Malaysian officials immediately said they would seek to have the rules changed, after Yap Yee Yin was bumped off the third- place dais and Thailand's Nattakarn Khanchai was awarded the bronze.
"Yap is the number three and everybody knows it," Nataliya Sinkova, the Ukraine-born Malaysian women's coach, said as quoted by the Associated Press.
"If we win three medals, we should get three medals," Sinkova said. "Tomorrow we will have a meeting (with officials). We must change the rules."
Nurul Fatiha Hamid won the gold for Malaysia with a score of 32.588, and teammate Chang Zhi Wei the silver with 32.119. Yap scored 31.444, 0.74 ahead of Nattakarn's 31.370.
But SEA Games rules say that if three athletes from one nation are the top place-getters, the one in third cannot accept the bronze, which goes to the next-best athlete from another country receives the bronze, Sinkova said.
Malaysia's women gymnasts came as close to dominating their sport as the rules allow: Nurul, Chang and Yap, with two other teammates, won gold Sunday in the women's team competition.