Coach gets golden present from women’s gymnastics team
The women’s gymnastics team wanted to give their coach the best possible birthday present they could. And when the time came, the six girls in the team – Farah Ann Abdul Hadi, Tracie Ang, Tan Ing Yueh, Lavinia Raymund Jayadev, Siti Nur Bahirah Ahmad and Nur Eli Ellina Azmi – turned in their best performances to emerge champions in the team gymnastics event.

The Malaysians were in superb form as they dominated the day’s proceedings at the Bishan Sports Hall to claim the elusive team gold. The girls amassed a total of 206.500 points to finish comfortably ahead of second placed Singapore and third-placed Philippines, “We wanted to win for our team and also for our coach Nataliya (Sinkova). It’s her birthday today and we wanted to celebrate it in a special way,” said Farah. “We are all very happy.”

The golden feat was indeed a memorable one for Malaysia who last bagged the women’s team gold in the 2001. Coincidentally, Nataliya was also the coach of the 2001 team.

Nataliya admitted the competition was very tense with everyone going all out to win the judges over. “This is my dream team,” said Sinkova, who turned 49 last Sunday.