NSC expresses concern over performances of male divers
National Sports Council (NSC) directorgeneral Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail has expressed concern over the performances of the national men’s divers at the justconcluded Diving World Cup in Tokyo.
He said NSC and Malaysia Swimming would conduct a post-mortem on the performances of the national squad soon.
Although diving queen Pandelela Rinong and Cheong Jun Hoong gave Malaysia reason to be proud, the performances of the men’s divers nosedived after being out of competition for more than a year, he said.
“The displays given by the men’s divers were most worrying, especially the seniors who did not give us any reason to cheer.
“It was a mixed bag of performances in Japan. We have reason to cheer and to be concerned.
“Pandelela clinched gold and Jun Hoong made a comeback to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics after injuring herself in 2018 and going almost two years without any competitive tournaments,” he said when receiving the national squad on their return from Japan at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) here early yesterday.
In the World Cup held from May 1-6, the last qualifying tournament for the Tokyo Olympics in July, Pandelela splashed her way to the women’s 10m platform gold while Jun Hoong finished 18th in the semifinals.
The pair of Pandelela-Leong Mun Yee also finished fourth in the women’s 10m platform synchronised event.
In the women’s 3m springboard, Ng Yan Yee was placed 11th and Nur Dhabitah Sabri failed to clear the semifinals, while the two teamed up in the 3m springboard synchronised event where they finished 15th out of 16 pairs.
But it was the men that gave cause for concern, as in the 3m springboard Muhammad Syafiq Puteh and Chew Yiwei crashed out in the preliminary round by finishing 23rd and 43rd respectively, while Yiwei-Ooi Tze Liang ended up seventh in
the 3m springboard synchronised event.
In the men’s 10m platform, Jellson Jabillin and Hanis Nazirul Jaya Surya finished 34th and
43rd respectively out of 46 pairs in the preliminary round, and ended up in ninth place in the synchronised event.
Ahmad Shapawi said the
national diving squad would be quarantined for 14 days as required by the National Security Council and Health Ministry. —Bernama