Terengganu are the greenhorns in the diving competition
TERENGGANU divers were handpicked from Perhentian Island just five months before the ongoing Malaysia Games (Sukma) in Perak.
As they did not have training facilities back home, they spent some time in China to learn the art of diving from scratch.
Team manager Foo Wai Choo described her side as David versus Goliaths in their Sukma debut – but she believed they will be a force to be reckoned with at the next Games.
“We are just a small team competing against the giants of Malaysian diving from Selangor, Sabah and Sarawak,” said Wai Choo.
“This is only the second time Terengganu are participating in diving. The first time was when we hosted the Sukma back in 2008 but we used athletes from the other states.
“The Terengganu Sports Council want to develop diving and swimming as they realised aquatics offer a lot of gold medals (48 in total). Terengganu do not want to be left out in the chase for medals and want to put up a stronger challenge at the next Sukma in 2020 in Johor.”
In Perak, though, Wai Choo said they had no expectations.
“Our divers only started training five months ago. We did talent identification in Perhentian Island because the children over there have been exposed to water activities when they were babies. We selected the best five.
“They had zero knowledge about diving and we had to train them in China. The only diving pool we have in Kuala Terengganu could not be used as it is damaged and beyond repair.
“We also engaged a Chinese coach to train them here so they can execute the basic set of dives for a national competition like this,” said Wai Choo, who herself is a schoolteacher and was asked to lead the team in order to act as a translator for the divers.
The five Terengganu boys competing in diving are Ikmal Abror Ibrahim, Muhd Haziq Muizzudin, Nazzaridy Akhashah Othman, Nur Afiq Danial Sutoyo and Nur Aiman Daniel Azman.
Nazzarudy and Nur Afiq did well to finish fourth in the boys’ platform synchro final yesterday when they combined to score 216.57 points.