Indonesian Sport Climbing Federation's (FPTI's) central manager, Chairman I Rudy Fitryano, stated that Leonardo had bagged a gold after defeating climbing athlete from the West Java contingent Raharjati Nursyamsa in the final round, clocking a time of 8.467 seconds.
"Veddriq Leonardo from West Kalimantan managed to win a gold medal, Raharjati Nursyamsa from West Java bagged a silver medal, while Kiromal Katibin from Central Java won a bronze medal," Fitryano stated during a press conference at the SP2 Mimika's Sport Climbing Arena on Friday.
He added that Leonardo managed to clocked his best time when he beat Kaitibin in the semifinal, with 5.489 seconds as compared to the latter's time of 5.855 seconds.
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However, both Leonardo and Katibin have not yet broken their record from when they had competed in the 2021 International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) World Cup held at Salt Lake City, the US, wherein they managed to clocked 5.20 seconds and 5.25 seconds respectively.
Leonardo told reporters that he strove to be better when he came up against his opponent, Raharjati Nursyamsa from West Java, in the final round.
"When I went up against the contender from West Java during the final, I tried to improve my time. However, when we were starting, we ran into a problem. We slipped down below. However, alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah), I can still continue to climb to reach the top," he explained.
As a result, Leonardo only managed to clock 8.467 seconds, while Nursyamsa did not make it to the top since he fell down.
Despite this, Leonardo remarked that Nursyamsa's achievement of reaching the final round was praiseworthy. The 5.143-second record that Nursyamsa managed to achieve while facing off against Aspar Jaelolo from Jakarta in the semifinal is the best time record in this iteration of Papua PON.
"When I heard the 5.1 (seconds) record from West Java, I actually thought that it was amazing," he affirmed. (
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Translator: Abdu Faisal, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Suharto
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