<figure id="attachment_3233841" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3233841" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-3233841 size-full" src="https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/b53ccefd-nani-sahirah-maryata-bernama-121225-1.webp" alt="Nani Sahirah Maryata" width="1600" height="1000" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-3233841" class="wp-caption-text">Nani Sahirah Maryata set a new national record of 16.38m in the women&#8217;s shot put event at the SEA Games in Thailand. (Bernama pic)</figcaption></figure>
BANGKOK: National women’s shot putter Nani Sahirah Maryata, who smashed her own national record to win a gold medal at the SEA Games today, has set her sights higher &#8211; towards 17m, the Commonwealth Games, and the Asian Games.
Her throw of 16.38m, came after less-than-sterling performances this year, including the world university games in Germany and the Asian championship in South Korea where she managed only 14m.
“This is like a gift for myself as I’ve lost a lot in major championships. Only at the Asian athletics championship did I manage 15.06m,&#8221; she said, although this is still well below her national record of 15.39m set in Perlis last year.
“So I didn’t have high hopes, only wanting to do better. This is the first time I’ve done 16m, so this is a very huge surprise,” she said after the medal presentation. Areerat Intadis of Thailand (16.04m) and Huyen Thi Kim of Vietnam (15.92m) finished second and third.
&#8220;My target is to go to the Commonwealth Games and I need to reach 17m. The Asian Games, meanwhile, is a championship where there are many of my rivals, that’s the long-term goal,” she added.
Nani dominated today&#8217;s competition after achieving a difficult-to-beat mark of 16.36m on her second throw to confirm the gold.
The national athletics team was also cheered when women&#8217;s hammer throw champion, Grace Wong, won the first gold medal this morning, and a bronze from Armin Zahryl Abdul Latif who finished third in the 110m hurdles event, matching his personal best time of 13.85s. In the men&#8217;s 400m event, Malaysia failed to defend the gold after the reigning champion Umar Osman only managed to finish fifth in the final with a time of 47.13s.

MatchPoint Times

Shot put ace sets her sights higher after record-breaking surprise

Nani Sahirah Maryata broke the 16m mark, smashing her own national record, to win gold at the SEA Games.

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