KUALA LUMPUR: Just a week ago, Malaysia’s archery trio of Cheng Chu Sian, Haziq Kamaruddin and Khairul Anuar Mohammad were the early birds in sealing tickets to the London Olympic Games.

And on Sunday, their wheel-chair bound team-mate – Mohd Salam Sidik (pic) – also did the country proud when he emerged as the first disabled Malaysian this year to book a place for the Paralympic Games in London.

Salam did it by virtue of winning a bronze medal at the World Championships in the individual recurve ARW2 class when he defeated Iran’s Shahabipour Roham 6-4 in the third place playoff at the World Championships in Torino, Italy.

He sparked off a big hope when he made it to the quarter-finals with an impressive 7-3 win over Taiwan’s Tseng Lung-hing. In the semi-finals, he found South Korea’s Lee Myeong-gu too hot to handle and went down 4-6.

But Salam’s strong determination to get it right at the playoff has certainly lifted the morale of the whole disabled archery team.

National coach Amirullah Ahmad said that this year’s competition was the toughest ever as the athletes did not hold any extra advantages.

“The athletes had to go through the same Olympic qualifying system like normal athletes and despite the stringent qualifying process, our athlete managed to come through it successfully. I am very proud,” said Amirullah.

Amirullah is now confident that more archers would be able to emulate Salam when the team get a second shot at qualifying for the Paralympic Games at the Stoke Mandeville Open in London from Sept 5-8.

“Salam’s achievement had raised the spirit of the whole team. I am confident that we will be able to fill up the maximum quota to qualify. We just need two more individuals to make the cut and it will enable us to compete in the team event as well.”

Malaysia almost sealed another spot when women archer Nor Saadah Abdul Wahab made it to the third place playoff but muffed up the chance when she went down tamely to Italian Elisabetta Migno losing 1-6.

In the team events, both the men and women failed to clear the early rounds.

The National Sports Council (NSC) sports officer Mohd Nadzri Zakaria said that a systematic training preparation for the disabled archers had been bearing fruits.

“There have been transformation in the national disabled team since 2007. We also had representatives at the 2008 Beijing Paralymic Games for the first time and it was a good exposure. We have put more effort to raise their standard and now, we can see better results from them,” said Nadzri.

The men’s archers team led by Salam finished as the runners-up at the World Ranking Championships in the Czech Republic in 2010 and at the Asian Games in Guangzhou last year, the men’s team went down to Iran in the semi-finals.