Adeola Fay Robert wins Malaysia's first gold at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games

NAGOYA: Adeola Fay Robert won Malaysia's first gold medal of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games after beating Iran's Fatemeh Zahra Saeidabadi 6-4 in the women's under-55 kilogramme kumite final at the Toyohashi Gymnasium in Aichi today.

The gold ends Malaysia's 12-year wait for an Asian Games karate title, since Syakilla Salni's win at Incheon 2014.

The 20-year-old from Sabah took a hard road to the final.

In the quarter-finals she beat the defending champion from Hangzhou 2022, Uzbekistan's Sevinch Rakhimova, 8-7. In the semi-finals she edged Kazakhstan's Bella Samasheva 5-4, before overcoming Saeidabadi in the final.

Adeola had won bronze in the same event at the Bangkok 2025 SEA Games last December.

Karate keeps delivering

The win brings the national karate squad's tally to three medals so far.

Karate also delivered Malaysia's first two medals on Sunday, when K Thevendran took bronze in the men's under-55kg kumite and H Sureeya Sankar won bronze in the men's under-60kg kumite.

On the same day as Adeola's win, wushu exponent Tan Cheong Min added a bronze in the nanquan-nandao event.

Malaysia now has one gold and three bronze medals and is 15th on the medal table.

A six-gold target

The national contingent brought 352 athletes to Aichi-Nagoya with a target of 33 medals: six gold, seven silver and 20 bronze. Karate was among the sports listed as medal hopes.

The Games run until October 4.