Plunge for London

Bryan-huang new partnership aiming for Olympic diving quota spot

PETALING JAYA: Bryan Nickson Lomas will form a new combination with former China national champion Huang Qiang in a bid to earn an Olympic quota spot in the men’s synchro 3m springboard in the FINA Diving World Cup starting today.

The week-long championships at the Olympic Park Aquatics Centre is the final qualifying meet for the London Olympics and Malaysia are hopeful of having more divers make the cut.

Huang, who is also a coach with the national squad, was given the nod to partner Bryan at the team managers’ meeting yesterday. The men’s synchro 3m springboard starts with the preliminaries in the morning followed by the final later in the evening.

Huang received his Malaysian citizenship last July but was told he had to wait nine months, as stipulated by world governing body FINA, before he could compete again.

An Asian Games silver medallist at age 16 in 1998, Huang beat Russian diving legend Dmitri Sautin three times in 1999. He was one of the strongest gold medal contenders for the 2000 Sydney Olympics but a back injury forced him to withdraw just days before the competition.

Huang was then partnering Tian Liang and they were unbeatable. He turned to coaching following the injury.

Bryan partnered Yeoh Ken Nee for the last three years and they were silver medallists at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.

Their pairing also delivered a bronze at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and gold at consecutive SEA Games in 2009 and 2011.

Malaysia have never qualified for the synchro discipline at the Olympic level before and 21-year-old Bryan is hoping the current squad will make history in London.

He paired with Huang during the national team’s month-long stint in China prior to leaving for the World Cup and is optimistic the new combination can take flight. “It’s better than my partership with Ken Nee, who is heavier with a difference of about 16kg between us.

“As a result, I have to go later when we jump off the board because of the weight and height difference.

“It’s okay at SEA Games level but we find it hard to get better marks at the world level.

“Huang and I are better synchronised because there is not much difference between us. I’m hopeful we can achieve something here.

“The only problem, is, he hasn’t competed for some time. But the coach felt he has improved a lot since we went to China for training,” said Bryan, who qualified for the Olympic men’s individual 3m springboard and 10m platform at the World Championships in Shanghai last year.

The top 18 semi-finalists for the individual disciplines will go to London but it is harder for the synchro as only four tickets are at stake.

Besides Bryan, Ken Nee and Pandelela Rinong have also made the cut for the men’s springboard and women’s platform.

Pandelela and Traisy Vivien will compete in the women’s individual 10m platform preliminaries today.