China bringing their strongest team for diving competition

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia can forget about eyeing the diving gold medal at the Indonesia Asian Games in Jakarta with China entering Zhang Jiaqi-Zhang Minjie for the women’s 10m platform synchro event.

China will be sending their strongest squad headed by Olympic and world champion stars in a bid to repeat the clean sweep of all 10 gold medals at stake from the 2014 edition in Incheon, South Korea.

Malaysia’s Pandelela Rinong-Leong Mun Yee would perhaps stand a chance to fight for the gold medal if China had entered Si YajieLin Shan.

Pandelela partnered Cheong Jun Hoong to beat Si Yajie-Lin Shan to win a first-ever gold medal at the Diving World Series in Montreal, Canada in April.

However, the Chinese diving team have put their faith on 14-yearold diving duo of Jiaqi-Minjie to deliver the women’s 10m platform gold medal.

Jiaqi-Minjie have yet to lose in the event since they made their international debut at the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid last year.

They are also the overall winners of the women’s 10m platform synchro event at the Diving World Series and Pandelela-Mun Yee, despite their experience, stand little chance of beating the classy Chinese pair.

Mun Yee was asked to reunite with Pandelela for the 10m platform synchro after Jun Hoong came down with a chronic knee injury. Pandelela-Jun Hoong won gold at the Commmonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia this year and were also silver medallists at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Double Rio Olympic champion Shi Tingmao will shoulder the duty to bag the women’s 3m springboard individual and synchro titles along with Chang Yani.

Malaysia are still good bets to fight for silver and bronze in the women’s events but it will be a daunting prospect in the men’s competition with South Korea and Japan having caught up.

The Malaysian male divers failed to contribute a medal at the recent Commonwealth Games and the men’s 3m springboard synchro remains the best chance for Ooi Tze Liang-Chew Yiwei to take a medal.

The men’s list sees the return of former world champion and 2012 London Olympic silver medallist Qiu Bo who will compete in the men’s 10m individual platform along with reigning Olympic champion Chen Aisen in Jakarta.

Peng Jianfeng and Xie Siyi, the current world champions in the respective 1m and 3m individual springboard, will be contesting in Jakarta along with 2014 Youth Olympics double champion Yang Hao.

Former Malaysian coach Yang Zhuliang said China are always serious when it comes to diving at the Asian Games.

“There is no way they want to surrender their dominance in diving. They have earned clean sweep in many editions and Malaysian divers have slipped behind to be of threat to the Chinese divers.

“The younger Chinese divers also want to do well in the Asian Games to prove their worth for the Tokyo Olympics in two years time,” he said.

In Incheon, Malaysia bagged two silvers and three bronzes from diving.