Malaysian shot put thrower Ziyad Zolkefli's coach, Faizol Harun, backed him to succeed in qualifying for next year's Asian Games.

Currently the Rio Paralympic gold medallist's personal best is not enough for him to secure an automatic qualication at Jakarta-Palembang 2018.

Furthermore, despite holding a world para record of 17.29m, Ziyad, who is also the first para-athlete to win a medal in SEA Games history, is still short of breaking Adi Alifuddin's national record (17.56m).

However, despite being aware of the difficulty, he is aiming to not only qualify for the Games but also surpass the 18.65m mark, which is the fifth best record in Asia.

Due to that, Faizol is planning to do all he can to help his mentee, who is currently preparing for the upcoming 2017 ASEAN Para Games.

"Based on the training programme prepared for him, I am confident that Ziyad can throw farther than 18m next year," he said.

"[A distance of more than] 18.5m will be difficult, but he is determined to pull it off, so we will give him opportunities to try to do so.

"If he can do it, then the rest is up to the Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF)."

For the record, the current Asian Games record in men's shot put is 20.57m set by Sultan Abdulmajeed Al-Hebshi in 2010.