Amir Daniel Abdul Majeed had spent years trying to balance the demands of being a student and a national athlete, often leaving little time for the people closest to him.
On Aug 1, that sacrifice finally produced a historic result when the 21-year-old Penangite won Malaysia’s first-ever Commonwealth Games gold medal in judo.
Competing in the men’s Under-81kg final at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, Amir Daniel defeated South Africa’s Timothy Meuwsen with a waza-ari using a kata-guruma technique in a four-minute bout.
The victory gave Malaysia its eighth gold medal of the Games, while Amir Daniel became the first Malaysian judoka to win Commonwealth Games gold.
The cost behind the medal
Speaking to Bernama after the victory, Amir Daniel said the medal carried immense meaning because of everything that had gone into reaching that moment.
As a Universiti Sains Malaysia student, his days had been divided between training and his studies, leaving him with little opportunity to spend time with his family.
“This medal is for all Malaysians. This is Malaysia’s first-ever Commonwealth Games judo gold medal, and I can say this medal holds immense value. All the sacrifices, blood, sweat, and tears finally yielded the best success,” he told Bernama.
He explained that those sacrifices were not limited to the physical demands of training. They also involved time, finances and family, with his packed schedule meaning he rarely even had the chance to sit down and ask his mother how her day had been.
His mother, Yeoh Suatkhim, and his sister, Nur Yasmeen, were at the venue to watch him win the final, giving the moment a personal significance beyond the result itself. Immediately after becoming a Commonwealth champion, Amir Daniel joked that he might finally take a short break.
“Perhaps after this I can rest for a week and spend time with my family,” he said.
He had another obstacle to overcome
The road to Glasgow had also included a serious injury. Earlier this year, Amir Daniel suffered a grade two medial collateral ligament, or MCL, tear and had to undergo several rounds of treatment and rehabilitation. Rather than viewing the injury as something that would derail his campaign, he treated it as another challenge to overcome.
“I didn’t view the injury as a setback, but something to learn from and overcome,” he said.
That mindset ultimately carried him through to a victory over Meuwsen, who was ranked 41st in the world compared with Amir Daniel’s 117th ranking at the time.
From a first medal to a historic gold
The Glasgow victory was another milestone in Amir Daniel’s Commonwealth Games journey.
At the 2022 Birmingham edition, he had already made history by winning Malaysia’s first-ever Commonwealth Games judo medal, taking bronze in the Under-73kg category.
Four years later, he returned in a different weight class and went one step further, delivering the country’s first judo gold at the Games.
For Amir Daniel, the next target is already much bigger. After completing his historic Glasgow campaign, he said his focus will now turn to qualifying for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games and challenging for a podium finish.
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