Farah Ann Abdul Hadi

Early life

Farah was born in Subang Jaya, Selangor, to Abdul Hadi Ahmad and Canadian-born Kimberly Ann Gagnon on 3 May 1994. She is the second of three children and her sister, Katrina Ann, is a national synchro swimmer.

Career

She took up gymnastics at age three and started to compete at national level competition Sukma Games. Farah Ann made her first appearance at the 2010 Games in New Delhi, scoring 12.050 points (floor exercise), 10.500 (beam) and 10.250 (uneven bars) as Malaysia finished fourth in the team event. In 2014, Farah Ann then took up the bronze in floor exercise and team event at Artistic Celtic Cup-Commonwealth Invitational in Perth, Scotland. Later that year, she finished in 11th place out of 24 gymnasts in the women’s individual all-round finals at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland . After the Commonwealth Games, she competed in the Asian Games in Gwangju, Korea. During the qualification stage, she placed sixth on the vaults (13.650 points), sixth in the uneven bars (12.800), 12th in the balance beam (12.250) and fourth in the floor exercise (13.050). She made it to the finals in the floor exercise, and finished 7th.

In 2015, she competed at the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games), competing in all events — bars, beam, vaults, floor exercise, individual and team — in the preliminary round of the competition and made it to the finals of all events. She took up her first gold medal in the team's events, followed by a second in the floor exercise. She then gained a silver medal each in both the uneven bars, and individual events. The Malaysian gymnast won bronze medals in the vault, balance beam, as well as the uneven bars event, where another Malaysian gymnast Tan Ing Yueh took the gold.

Controversy

Following her multiple medals at the SEA Games, Farah Ann was criticised by Malaysian MP Jamil Khir Baharom because the outline of her genitalia ("aurat") was visible through her leotards. He announced a review of “Islamic compliance for clothing used for sports and other fields”.

Awards and nomination