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Sunday, February 23, 2014

Sasuke ASEAN Open Cup - Update 3

Day 3 is the main event!  Individual Finals!  100 competitors! ©Sasuke Malaysia

Finally! After a long year and a half, multiple delays, a full rescheduling, a last minute change in location, the big day has arrived!  Day 3 hosted the Individual Finals for the Sasuke ASEAN Open Cup.  Under VERY hot weather conditions in the South Pacific (35C/98F) the day is finally here! (Day 1 was Malaysia qualifying and Day 2 was Open/worldwide qualifying)

Day 3 highlights ©1Malaysia For Youth

100 competitors chosen from Open qualifying the past 2 days along with the 5 competitors from Team Japan all participated today for a chance at 4 different sets of medals.  (more on that later)

Day 3 highlights ©1Malaysia For Youth

Under hot conditions but electric atmosphere the event seemed to go without a hitch (at least anything anyone complained about - which was none) as all the competitors had fun competing and enjoying each other's company.

Opening Ceremonies ©Ryan Stratis

The day started with an Opening ceremonies with each of the competitors, team colors and all enjoying the festivities. It was nice seeing that they did some sort of ceremony to start the event.

Opening Ceremonies ©Nidzam Syaamil

I swear.. Shingo ALWAYS screws up photos.. LOL He just can't keep still!  But seriously makes this photos hilariou!

 Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 ©Masato Inui

Then the last-minute special guest arrived at the event held at Dataran Petaling Jaya in Malaysia.  The one and only, Sasuke Legend and Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠.

Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 ©Nidzam Syaamil
A highlight in many fans lives where their hero was there in person introducing the event and congratulating them for their support for this inaugural tournament.

Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠
Quote: The King has arrived! The place blew up. Everyone was screaming 'Nagano! Nagano! Nagano!' ©Azhan

LOL And of course as it happens whenever Makoto speaks the crowd goes nuts!  Thanks to Azhan for not just the photos but the play by play!

Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠
Quote: The king in a rare moment of awkwardness ©Azhan

Ahahahaah the chant actually threw him off that he forgot his lines!  So he had to take out a piece of paper that had his speech!  I'm totally having kittens here! Makoto girly giggle™

Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 ©Nidzam Syaamil

More photos of the opening ceremonies with Makoto Nagano speaking.  Again, nice to see fans being allowed to take and share photos!

Team Taiwan enjoying the festivities ©Nidzam Syaamil


I'm adoring this festive atmosphere created during this event. If it's THIS inclusive during their inaugural year and everyone had fun, I'm really looking forward to the development of this event for future years!

Ryo in the crowd during the opening ceremonies ©Nidzam Syaamil

LOL New Generation Star Ryo Matachi (Cliffer #2) 又地諒 being a total fan-boy and taking photos of all the festivities.  Would love to see those photos!

Team Japan warming up and getting interviewed ©Azhan

I'm laughing at the silly grin on Shingo's face right now!  He really can't do a public speaking thing with a straight face can't he? LOL

Azhan with Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 ©Azhan

Thanks Azhan for the amazing photos! I hope you found your camera battery! I'm happy you did manage to get an awesome fan photo!

 Team Japan
Sasuke All-star Shingo Yamamoto 山本進悟 with Shin Sedai (新世代) literally "New Generation" member Kazuma Asa 朝一眞, New Generation member Hitoshi Kanno 菅野仁志 and Sasuke Veteran and Former Finalist Kenji Takahashi 高橋賢次 and Sasuke Veteran Yuusuke Morimoto 森本 裕介 ©Ekamil Razali

Already qualified from last year's Sasuke 29, Team Japan came in cool Blue uniforms for the Individual Finals.  They also compete in the Team Finals on Sunday.

Awesome shot of The Gallon Throw (ザ・ガロンスロー) ©Sasuke Malaysia
I wish this event was televised.. it looked like so much fun.  Either way, the following are highlights of the competition.

The Spider Walk (スパイダーウォーク) ©Nidzam Syaamil

Organizers again encouraged everyone to take and share photos so again I had a HUGE amount of photos to chose from.

Sasuke 27 Veteran Ryan Stratis ライアン・ストラティス ©Ryan Stratis

Long-time Sasuke fan "Strat" as he's known in the Sasuke/Ninja Warrior community, coming all the way to Malaysia with his Sasuke 27/ANW shirt ready to compete again.

 Awesome shot of The Gallon Throw (ザ・ガロンスロー) ©Ekamil Razali

I know this obstacle is much smaller than it was in Sportsman #1 but I'm tickled pink seeing this event here!  Makes for great photos!

 Sasuke Veteran Brett Sims ブレッド・スイムス famous America shorts) ©Ekamil Razali

So nice to see Brett also fly out to Malaysia.  I blogged about him a few years ago being one of the first G4 sponsored Americans to Sasuke way back in Sasuke 19 (and 20).  He did well in this competition wowing the crowd and even getting videos posted of him. It's strange for me seeing him grow up before my eyes!

 
 New Generation member Hitoshi Kanno 菅野仁志, New Generation member Kazuma Asa 朝一眞 and Yuusuke Morimoto 森本 裕介©Masato Inui
Team Japan seemed to be enjoying the company of their fellow athletes. I love the uniform btw.  Awesome blue color!

Proud UK resident Ben Da Silva-Jones ©Ben Da Silva-Jones

I love photos like these.  Another brave soul traveling from the other side of the world to participate representing the United Kingdom.  He so loved this event he vowed to come back next year with a UK team!  The organizers showed they had interest in making the event bigger and with the inclusion of the team event I'm sure this will get more popular in the future!

 Michelle Warnky trying to beat the heat ©Ekamil Razali

Michelle Warnky is a rising star on the American Ninja Warrior scene.  She also came all the way over to Malaysia to participate and caused quite a stir with how well she competed!

Michelle Warnky ©Sasuke Malaysia

Scenes like this want me to bug TBS again to revive Kunoichi!  I mean seriously, why can't we have another Kunoichi? I mean.. seriously.. bring it back!

Michelle Warnky ©Nidzam Syaamil

Actually there were a few women in this event. I was happy to see them compete!  I hope more women come out and support this event in the future.

 
 Team Japan goofing around with other competitors
New Generation member Kazuma Asa 朝一眞, Sasuke Veteran Kenji Takahashi 高橋賢次 on top of the shoulders of American Mike Bernardo and (kneeling) New Generation member Hitoshi Kanno 菅野仁志

I'm so happy everyone was having a ball during this event.  Something reminded to me of those who have been to Sasuke, this isn't the same atmosphere. It was a huge party there in Malaysia.

Sasuke All-star Shingo Yamamoto 山本進悟, Nidzam Syaamil and New Generation member Hitoshi Kanno 菅野仁志,©Nidzam Syaamil

Sasuke fans had a rare opportunity of posing with Sasuke veterans for photos. There were dozens upon dozens of photos of fan meet and greet during a day of competition.

Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 with Drew Dreschel ©Drew Dreschel

Sasuke 27 Veteran Drew Dreschel posing with Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠.  For those who remember, Drew was part of the powerhouse American team (the last of the G4 sponsored Americans) in Sasuke 27 that dominated that event.  Drew unfortunately came down wrong on angle on the Half Pipe Attack and broke his leg.. yes.. on the course.  TBS cut it but ANW showed it in slow motion many times. He had surgery and was back competing in a very short time.  He was here supporting the event and hanging out with his fellow ANW buddies and being a general Sasuke fan-boy!

 Volunteer group posing for photos

Cool photo of the female volunteer group helping with the running of the event!  Good work everyone!

SAOC Volunteer with Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠

More fan photos from the volunteer group.  Who wouldn't resist taking a photo with a Sasuke Legend?

Sasuke All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠 ©Sasuke Malaysia

Speaking of Nagano, he was part of an impromptu "show off" session with all the competitors between a break in the action.  His turn came up to show something and he decided to become a Saiyan (From the anime Dragonball) and do a Kamehameha on the crowd! (Video here)

Team Taiwan led by Sasuke Veteran Lee En-Chih (リー・エンチ)(李 恩至).
Also making the trip was Sasuke Veteran from Taiwan Lee En-Chih (リー・エンチ)(李 恩至).  He came here with a team ready to compete in the Team Finals to be held on Sunday. This day he's competing in the individual event.

Competitors eagerly looking for their scores ©Zai Joehurry

After all the runs were calculated you had people looking over the television screen that had the running totals of the top times. Then fairly quickly the final results were tallied and shown on the monitor.

 And here they are!  The Individual event results for the Sasuke ASEAN Open Cup 2014 ©Sasuke Malaysia
Btw FULL Scores for all 100 competitors who participated in the Individual Final are already on the main website.  Please visit here : http://www.sasukemalaysia.org/DL/Finals.pdf For those a little confused about the pdf file and how the scores worked, they had broken up the course into the 3 stages I discussed yesterday.  3 groups were competing simultaneously around the 3 stages.  Each stage was labeled into what the obstacles were trying to achieve: Jump, Hang and Power obstacles.  The numbers represents the time it took for them to complete each stage.  The 2nd set of scores are for the time penalties for failing on top of your stage time. So if someone fell off an obstacle or missed a connection or something else, a 30 second time penalty (along with disqualification from completing that stage) was added to your time. At the end of the competition, all times including the penalties were added up.  The list on the pdf has the scores ordered by their registration number.  I hope they have one in order of times since the form is a bit frustrating to read.  Top times in each of the categories were given medals:  The chart above was only showing the Top times in each of the categories.

Jump:
Drew Dreschel (USA)
Wang Jun An (Taiwan)
David Campbell デイヴィッド・キャンベル (USA)

Hang:
Drew Dreschel (USA)
Yuusuke Morimoto 森本 裕介 (Japan)
Awg Mohd Hasnal Husna Bin Ahmad (Brunei)

Power:
Drew Dreschel (USA)
Alan Connealy (USA)
Kenji "Kong" Takahashi 高橋賢次 (Japan)

Sasuke 27 Veteran Drew Dreschel with Esma Dainal B Md Isa ©Esma Dainal
So after all times are factored in, all the times are added together to come up with an overall winner. These are then awarded with their own medals and a reported but unconfirmed cash prize.

Overall Top Times:
Drew Dreschel (USA)
Yuusuke Morimoto 森本 裕介 (Japan)
Awg Mohd Hasnal Husna Bin Ahmad (Brunei)
Team Japan's Yuusuke Morimoto 森本 裕介 ©Ekamil Razali

I'm happy to see Yuusuke do well in this event. He's been training for months for this event, ever since he was named the first member of Team Japan.  Count me as proud as well for doing an interview with me before the event started!  I'm stoked for Drew as well since most in Japan only knew of him as the guy that broke his leg in Sasuke.  Congrats also to Team Brunei for getting on the overal podium as well!  Hasnal was incidentally featured in his hometown newspaper back in Brunei just before the trip even started!

After the competition ©Drew Dreschel

I'm ecstatic that the event was well received by the competitors.  Despite the hot conditions, last minute changes and overall size of the event, they all made the best of the situation and made it into a memorable event for all of them.

Esma Dainal enjoying the day ©Esma Dainal

I was so happy to see everyone from all walks of life compete. Outside of posting pics quickly on twitter this guy even shared video of some of his run in the event! Truly the embodiment of the Sasuke Spirit.
 
 A somber New Generation member Kazuma Asa 朝一眞 ©Masato Inui

Not all was well though, in the chaos of the competition, Asa lost his cellphone.. I hope someone found it and returned it.

 New Generation member Kazuma Asa 朝一眞 and Sasuke 27 Veteran Ryan Stratis ライアン・ストラティス ©Ryan Stratis

What followed was a slew of photos of the partying!  Seems all the competitors banded together and got something to eat at the same place.  So what transpired was an all out party with selfies, food and entertainment.

 Muscle pics! ©Ryan Stratis

I loved this!  Lee, Asa, Kong, Shingo, Ryo, Kanno along with various other competitors from the competition all posing for photos and goofing around.

Sasuke 27 Veteran Drew Dreschel with Shingo ©Drew Dreschel

I'm sure in the next few days I'll see more of these photos! I'll most likely do a compilation blog later in the week to put more.  The photos from this event were amazing!

 Sasuke Veteran Kenji "Kong" Takahashi 高橋賢次 with Sasuke 27 Veteran Drew Dreschel ©Drew Dreschel

Flat out.. I LOVE THIS PHOTO!  Kong knowing he's known for his passion and screaming at the top of his lungs.  This.. is priceless! Snowy must be having kittens!

Best selfie EVER! ©Ryan Stratis

And again another photo of the competitors being total fan-boys! This is my favorite selfie of the event (so far). This blog took me over 4 hours to compile just trying to sort through all the photos (and finding the sources to correctly credit them).  Phew one more day to go!  Team Finals was Sunday!

11 comments:

ad uk said...

Really cool that someone from uk went .looks like the Americans done amazingly. loving the fact they all went for something to eat.

Unknown said...

Awesome work putting all this together. It looks like an amazing atmosphere and I wish I had gone this year even though I'm in no shape to be up there with those guys. Would have been an awesome time nonetheless. Here's hoping the next one is just as good!

Unknown said...

I bet everyone did great on SASUKE ASEAN OPEN CUP Malaysia. I'm glad so many people came to compete and I hope, Kazuma got his phone back. And way to go Ryo for doing excellent demos. I would love to meet Ryo and the rest of the new generation plus Shingo. They all seem like super cool people. Anyway, Ninja Warrior is awesome. How do you choose what pictures to post, of everyone messing around?

Chaki said...

Great blog as usual.
Next year, we all pitch in and send you there to live blog!

ad uk said...

I'd help fund you to go £100 as a start. Set up one of those go fund me pages

Arsenette said...

Aww you guys! I'd love to go. We'll see what happens. ;) I'm happy the event went well. For being a brand new event they did a great job once it finally got off the ground.

I'll be working on Day 4 blog sometime today. A lot of people are traveling back home so the amount of photos is being delayed to almost now (since Team Japan JUST got back home now and I'm sure USA is still traveling)

niki33 said...

Arsenette, it is a great idea to send you their to blog live, you have been doing this for years, and your hard work is greatly appreciated by me and hundreds of others. I'm in for $200.00. Come on people, get on board and let's not let her hard work go unappreciated. As always great job Arsenette.

Arsenette said...

Aww you guys. How's this. I'll think about it if I get an opportunity to do that. I'd love to be at Sasuke 30 but that's going to be expensive for 2 people (I always travel with hubby) going to the most expensive city in the world. LOL

Arsenette said...

Oh P.S. Seems Asa never found his phone and reported it stolen. Sucks.

niki33 said...

Arsenette, as ad uk said,if you set up one of those fund me pages I bet we can get you and your hubby to Sasuke 30. Seriously, I would set it up now. What a great feeling for all of us to know we sent you there. Think about it.

Arsenette said...

Awwww you guys are so sweet! I'd have to inquire about it. I can't just show up to that event in Japan since that's a closed television set. It's been a dream of mine to be able to do this so if it's possible I'll go for it. I'll keep you guys posted if it is a possibility. Thanks :)