KARATE athletes from the Malaysian contingent got first place in the World Female Virtual e-Kata Karate Championship, Makkal Osai reported.

       The event, which was organised by the Kedah Mawashi-geri Karate Academy, saw participation by women karate exponents from 14 other countries from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and South America take part.

       Academy chairman and trainer Suresh Mariappan said the participants were evaluated based on their video submission by an international panel of women karate experts.This included five women exponents from the home contingent.

       The 23 exponents who represented the academy and the country took home five gold, five silver and 11 bronze medals.

       India and the Philippines placed second and third respectively.

       He said the local athletes who took part in the event had been making waves in regional competitions over the last two years, winning medals in various categories

       > National Heart Institute (IJN) consultant cardiologist Dr Kumara Gurupparan Ganesan was conferred the Panglima Mahkota Wilayah (PMW) award which carries the title of Datuk, Makkal Osai reported.

       The award was given in recognition in his contributions in the field of cardiology. He was also part of the IJN team which made history as the first in the Asean region to successfully implant an advanced man-made heart valve in a patient.

       ● The above article is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with this ' >'sign, it denotes a separate news item.