BEST FB KL: Congratulations to Abdul Latif Romly for breaking the world record 3 times enroute to winning the Gold Medal in the Men's F20 Long Jump Final at the Rio Paralympic Games.
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| Abdul Latif Romly Malaysian Flag Bearer wins Gold In Long Jump F20 at Rio Paralympics 2016 |
Abdul Latif wins Paralympics Gold with record-breaking jump
THE STAR
A file picture of Abdul Latif competing at Sukma this year.
PETALING JAYA: Abdul Latif Romly delivered the third gold for Malaysia by breaking the world record – not once but three times – in the men's F20 long jump final at the Paralympics in Rio de Janerio, Brazil on Sunday.
Abdul Latif, the Malaysian flag bearer and the youngest in the contingent, faulted his first attempt but made no mistake when he jumped to 7.47m in his next attempt.
That was enough for the Perlis-born athlete to break the previous world mark of 7.37m set by Jose Exposito of Spain in 2003.
Abdul Latif was the last of the 12 finalists to compete and he was hardly out of step, breaking his own short-lived world mark with a 7.54m leap in his third attempt.
The lanky teenager then broke the world record a third time when he soared 7.60m in his fifth jump – and that proved enough for him to bag the gold medal.
Croatia's Zoran Talic settled for silver with 7.12m while Ukraine's Dmytro Prudnikov took the bronze with 6.99m.
Abdul Latif is ranked second in the world in his category and, together with Ridzuan, was one of Malaysia's two gold medallists at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha, Qatar, last year.
He cleared 7.35m in Doha for a new championship record.
At the Sarawak Sukma in Kuching in July, Abdul Latif competed against the able-bodied athletes and beat them all to the gold with a leap of 7.46m.
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