Iowa State won three of the ten events at the annual Malaysian Temasya Jaguh Malaya Inter-University Sports Event organized by the Association of Malaysian Students at Iowa State University on March 15-16.

Malaysian students at Iowa State aced the female 4×100-meter track race, male badminton matches and basketball games. The event is held every year during the first weekend of Spring Break. It is primarily attended by members of Malaysian student associations from Midwest universities.

This year, the event held at Lied Recreation Athletic Center was attended by about 450 participants and spectators, the organizers said.

Other sports played at the event included track races, tarik tali — a version of tug of war, badminton, basketball, volleyball, netball and futsal — a variant of soccer. Semifinals and finals for the events took place March 16 while preliminary rounds took place March 15.

“We have Malaysian students from all over the Midwest. This year, we had some from the East Coast which we did not expect at all,” said Nur Surya Abu, junior in advertising and a member of one of the planning committees. “There are students from Virginia Tech, Stevens Institute of Technology and SUNY, Buffalo.”

She said the event is organized during Spring Break as it is a tiring event for the students. Most of the students can then get rest during the remainder of the break.

“The thing about Malaysian sportsmanship is that they go all out, doing everything they can during the matches. We didn’t expect to have that many injuries,” Abu said.

She said some participants had minor injuries like scratches and bruises from volleyball and basketball matches.

“We did not expect this many people. We actually expected 300 students. But a lot of students decided to register as spectators,” Abu said.

She said the organization worked on the event for the last few months through different committees.

The event first started at Iowa State and then expanded to other universities.

“At first, it just started out as a friendly match with University of Iowa and Drake [University],” Abu said.  

Every university had a different number of participants.

“I think they did a pretty good job of organizing the tournament … I really like the facilities here,” said Raymond Vijaendreh, an undergraduate student from the University of Colorado-Boulder and a participant in the event.

He said the event was a good opportunity to meet friends studying in different universities.

Schedules from different universities are collaborated upon since they have Spring Break on different dates, said Basri Shahari, senior in mechanical engineering and a member of the logistics committee

“Some of my friends [were] playing volleyball and badminton. We [were] here to support our friends,” said Mei Teng, from University of Wisconsin-Madison and a spectator at the event.

Teng said the event gave her a chance to meet a friend from her school in Malaysia.

Malaysian students from Purdue University, Drake University, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and University of Wisconsin-Madison were major participants in the event.