KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 – The Tokyo Olympic Stadium will be remembered by Malaysian high jumper Lee Hup Wei for the tears he shed after failing to clear 2.17m in the qualifying round when the athletics program got underway in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics on Friday.
The Kajang-born athlete was bubbling with confidence when he won the ticket to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and even predicted that making the high jump finals is within his reach.
However the 34-year-old was lost for words and could only shake his head in utter disappointment when he was in the mixed zone where the media was waiting for him for an interview.
Hup Wei was overwhelmed with emotions – probably asking himself what went wrong on his three failed attempts to clear 2.17m set as the qualifying mark. For the record the Malaysian has a personal best of 2.29m.
Only 12 high jumpers qualified for the finals from a field of 33 from around the world .
This is Hup Wei’s third Olympics. His first was the Beijing Olympics (2008) and four years later at the London Olympics in 2012.
At the Rio Olympics five years ago, Malaysia was represented by Nauraj Singh Randhawa. Nauraj is now settled down in Germany and failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.
Earlier, wild card entry Azreen Nabila Alias clocked a personal best of 11.76s in the women’s 100m qualifying round – beating her previous best of 11.92s. The Terengganu-born Azreen came second in Heat Two which was won by Iran’s Farzaneh Fasihi.
The top three in each heat qualified for the first round.
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