KUALA LUMPUR: Weight does matter! National archer Beatric Wong Zhia has to put on weight in order to perform better. As a member of the national women’s team in the Recurve category, she has already begun working on it.

Beatric Wong Zhia

The instruction came from Malaysian coach, Lim Jae-hyung who felt that a heavy physique and more muscles would enable her to have a steadying influence in hoisting the bow and arrows and aiming for the bullseye.

Beatric wants to quickly complete her 'make-over' because her performance will make her eligible to represent the country in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games this year.

She is in the travelling party for an Invitational Commonwealth Test Match Event 2010, at Yamuna Sports Complex in New Delhi, India from Mar 7-14, which is also the venue for the Commonwealth Games in October. Beatric, who hails from Miri, said that she has to put an extra 10kg and has started consuming foods listed by nutritionists.

"My weight is now 45kg and I have been advised to reach a minimum of 55kg. I need to put on more weight quickly in order to reduce the margin of errors when shooting.

"The apparatus is quite heavy and failure to handle them properly could stifle my chances of a good performance. I have now come to realise the small factor that can make a lot of difference.

"I do not have a huge appetite for food but I am going to eat if that can help me produce better results," said 19-year-old Beatric, the eldest among two girls and a boy.

Although not selected for the Laos Sea Games, she was included in the national team last year after winning the national championship circuit 2 in the individual event and the team championship in August.

She did represent Malaysia twice in the Asian Archery championship circuits last year — Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur in February and July respectively — but poor performances denied her further opportunities.

However, this year she was picked again to represent the country in the individual as well as team events in the recently ended 1st Asian Grand Pix, in Kuala Lumpur. Beatric, along with Noor Azeira Taip and Anbarasi Subramaniam, finished third, in the team event, defeating Taiwan.