With three days of action left at the 2021 SEA Games, Malaysia hit their 36-gold medal target set before the biennial multi-sport event.

The national contingent, who had 34 gold medals at the start of the day on Friday, got the 35th through Nurul Syasya Nadiah Arifin in the women's 10m air pistol event.

Making her SEA Games debut, the 19-year-old shot for 239.3 points at the Hanoi National Training Centre to beat two-time ISSF World Cup runner-up Tanyaporn Prucksakorn (238.7 points) of Thailand and Vietnam's Trinh Thu Vinh (214.1 points).

Then the men's karate team delivered Malaysia's 36th gold medal by defeating Indonesia in the men's team kumite final.

It also meant Malaysia matched the medal total from the Manila 1991 edition, and they could still add more to it.

Three years ago in the Philippines, Malaysia celebrated 55 gold medals, while their all-time highest medal haul was 145 in the 2017 edition at home.

Malaysia's best performance as a non-SEA Games host was in 2007 when they bagged 68 gold medals in Thailand.