Petite Marangina packs power

MARANGINA Karani is only 139cm tall and weighs 35kg, but the petite 16-year-old packed enough explosives in her scrawny arms to whip M. Santhiyaa of Kuala Lumpur for Sabah’s second silambam gold medal.
Sabah, fielding the only non-Indian contingent in the Malaysia Games silambam competition, have two gold medals to show after Nizam Jamal won the 38-43kg category on Saturday.
Fighting with a stick more than two times her height, the Sabah lass showed class and her deft attempts took a taller Santhiyaa by surprise in the 30-35kg combat event.
“I am so excited to win the gold medal for Sabah, as in the last Malaysia Games in Malacca (where silambam made its debut) I could only win a bronze medal,” said Marangina who could pose off as a 12-year-old.
The trained hard for the past three months, and it paid off handsomely: “I love this sport, which was introduced to me when I was in primary school and even though the training is tough, I have never regretted taking it up,” said Marangina.
She was hoisted by her team-mates, and there was a wild celebration as Sabah broke the dominance of more il lustrious states Negri Sembilan and Selangor.
Yesterday, Sabah also won a silver from Fevian Dean in the men’s 61-65kg and bronze in the men’s 66-75kg from Zaidi Lintung to bring their total to 2 gold, two silver and three bronze after three days of competition.
In the last Gamers, they only won one silve rand five bronze medals.
The Sabah coach Marcel Micheal, 21-years-old, said his charges are disciplined and dedicated which makes his taks that much easier.
“I picked up the sport when studying at SML Keningau, and now part my knowledge to students who are interested in it.
“Mostly, my exponents are from SMK Tabuan in Tenam,” said Micheal.
Today is the last day of competition, and Thanithiramai (Individual event) will be contested.
RESULTS (All Finals) -- Men: 56-60kg: 1 S. Mohan (Negri), 2 Micheal Nelson (Pg), 3 Denesh Kumar and Logan Kumar.
61-65kg: 1 R. Ravinkumar (Sel), 2 Fevian Dean (Sab), 3 M. Muthukumaran (Negri) and Sharven Raj (Pg).
66-75kg: 1 S. Ravi (joh), 2 R. Harwieenraj (Sel), 3 Zaidi Lintung (Sab) and Bernard Francis (Negri).
Women: 30-35kg: 1 Marangina Karani (Sab), 2 M. San thiyaa (KL), 3 Gurpreet Kaur (Negri) and K. Kausalya (Sel).
36-40kg: 1 M. Silambarasi (Negri), 2 S. Yogarathi (Pah), 3 S. Gayathree (Pk) and S. Anchanah (Pg).