Keynote SpeakerFarah Ann Abdul Hadi

Farah Ann binti Abdul Hadi, born in 1994, is Malaysia’s Artistic Gymnast. Farah Ann took up gymnastics at age three and started to compete at national level competition Sukma Games. She 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.

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. She has won 7 Gold Medals in the Sea Games. After barely missing Rio 2016, she has qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics fully by merit when she finished 59th out of 180 gymnasts in the qualifying session of the individual all-around event at the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. She is only the third Malaysian gymnast to qualify for the Olympics. Farah was named 2019 Female Olympian of the Year by the Olympic Council Malaysia. She studied Humanities, Social and Behavioural Science at Monash University.

Farah Ann has been immortalised as a Barbie doll by toymaker Mattel! The doll is part of Barbie’s Dream Gap project which aims to inspire young girls worldwide and Farah is just one of the international athletes named as role models.