Sabah Youth Muaythai Championship at Sabah Muaythai Camp

According to Sabah Muaythai president, Ir Hj Nazri Razak, Muaythai is relatively new in Sabah with around 8-9 years of history compare to the other state in Malaysia especially West Malaysia, but Sabah Muaythai has grown tremendously fast. This is due to the Sabah Muaythai Association working well as a team.

Him together with his deputy, Maman Ajmain and the rest of the committee has put in very solid planning and hard work to make sure the plan works. And all these cannot be accomplished without the good support from Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Sabah Sports Council; and the various gym in and around Sabah.

Development program set by the association is now bearing fruit, more needs to be done to ensure Sabah produce more high caliber Muaythai athletes. The big target for next year is to have a great showing for SUKMA in Perak.

The feather in the cap for 2017 is the new Sabah Muaythai Camp. It is located 3 km away from Papar town. This is also the home for Team Karabaw Papar. The camp occupies a land area of 8000 sq feet and house facilities for Muaythai training under Team Karabaw and also strength & conditioning facilities under Rhinobox. Food and beverage is available from the in house Bobheads Café.

Regular class will start soon in December for Muaythai & fitness but the camp main objective is to be a venue for fight camp. With it’s surrounding of greenery and laid back village life and a flowing river nearby serves as a great place for athletes to have their focus centralized training.

The timely completion of Sabah Muaythai Camp owes a lot to project leader Rayner Kinsiong. Rayner whom is also the founder of Team Karabaw has been overseeing the construction of the camp from day 1. Amidst his busy schedule of running a gym in Kota Kinabalu and Papar, training his fight team and being part of Sabah Muaythai team that represent Malaysia to IFMA World Youth Muaythai in Bangkok and 1st World Youth Martial Arts Mastership in Korea, he has spent sleepness night making sure the camp is built on time and to the specification that meet global standard.

Rayner Kinsiong

YB Datuk Rosnah in her opening speech. ( inset: Hj Nazri )

The Youth Championship was launched by YB Datuk Rosnah Binti Haji Abdul Rashid Shirlin, the member of Parliament for Papar and also Deputy Work Minister. In the launch she announced the support of RM3000 for the building of the hostel for Sabah Muaythai Camp. When fully completed, the two storey hostel can accommodate 26 athletes.

The Youth Championship saw the participation from various local gym from all over Sabah and also from Miri. Total 15 gyms / clubs took part and D’Sha from Tawau emerged champion with the medal haul of 4 Gold, 5 Silver and 3 Bronze.

Full medals tally

This is the first Championship for D’Sha Gym’s kids. Established in 2016, D’Sha is owned by former Sabah state bowler Sharon Andrea Gerald. Sharon switched to running after her competitive bowling days. She then went into her own construction business for a few years. But her heart still lies in sports. Trained as a personal fitness coach, she started coaching and also began training in Muaythai under her nephew at Alamgir Gym.

Sharon with her D Sha Ladies Fitness Gym members

Her achievement in Muaythai was a silver in 2016 Tawau Muaythai Championship, Bronze in Sabah Inter-District 2016 and most recently in Sept, Bronze in MFN Ladies Cup

She is also the secretary of Tawau Muaythai Association and are committed to produce more quality young Muaythai athletes from Tawau. She started D’Sha last year and focus on ladies fitness, as she felt that Tawau lack a place where the women folks can trained together comfortably as most other gym are dominated by male.

Sharon, making sure her students are well prepared

From there, as most of her female gym members are mothers, she started a Muaythai class for their children. She focus on kids from 6 to 16 years old and train them in getting all the basics right. When the kids grow older and has reached a good skill level that require more advance techniques and harder sparring session, she will pass them to her nephew Fazren Timmy who operates Tim’s Muaythai.

Tim’s Muaythai is also home to Daniel Fiedians Maideh @ Olan Todak, the sole Gold medalist in Muaythai IFMA Youth World Championship Bangkok in August.

For this 2017 Sabah Youth Muaythai, Sharon’s main objective was to expose the children to competition, to enable them to build confidence in the ring and letting them learn to perform under pressure. Also to let them meet other Muaythai exponent from other districts to exchange infor and make friends. She spend her own money to rent a van and drove her own car all the way from Tawau to Papar in an 8 hours drive.

She is definitely proud of her Muaythai kids’ performance. As a reward she spend an extra day with them, bringing them sight seeing, shop and eat in Kota Kinabalu.

Happy faces from participants

Team Karabaw Tamparuli took home 3 gold out of the three participants sent

Borneo Phoneix with 3 Gold, 1 Silver & 1 Bronze

Black Mamba Gym , 2 Gold, 2 Silver & 1 bronze

Team Karabaw Keningau & Papar, together took home 5 Gold, 7 Silver & 3 Bronze

Revolution Gym, with 2 Gold and 1 Silver

The future of Muaythai Sabah…Faiz Iskandar (66 Unicorn Sandakan ) on the left has been meeting Hazmie ( Black Mamba Gym ) – on the left for numerous time. The epic rivalry similar to Lee Chong Wei vs Lin Dan in badminton has push these two to perform at their very best . Both only 12 years old, the talent they possessed will need to be sharpened properly and we could be looking at potential future World Champion here.

The team that ensure the technical aspect and the event run smoothly.

Technical team lead by Muaythai Sabah vice president Reza Readwan ( fourth from right)

Referee and judges team lead by Rudy ( middle )

Floor Manager Dhilon Tahing ( in black tee

Crowds was able to get some delicious food from Bobhead’s Cafe, which serve Rayner Kinsiong’s mother recipe.

Cold MILO drinks was also available for all from sponsor Nestle Products Sdn Bhd.

Damn Good Burger also sets up a stall there run by Team Karabaw’s Deana.

Bobhead Cafe open from 8am to 8pm. Do order their house specialty Nasi Katok Mama or Ngau Chap Mama

Damn Good Burger

MILO always on the forefront of youth sports development