Malaysia’s Pandelela Rinong (right) and Leong Mun Yee perform a dive at the women’s synchronised 10m platform preliminary during the World Swimming Championships at the Montjuic municipal pool in Barcelona in this July 22, 2013 file photo. — Reuters photo
KUCHING: Malaysia will be going all out to break the Chinese stranglehold on the diving competition at the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea from Sept 19 to Oct 4.
National diving coach Yang Zhuliang said he is confident that the Malaysian diving team can at least bring home a gold medal from the 17th edition of the Games.
His confidence is based on the impressive performance of the Malaysians in international competition for the past four years.
“In terms of standard, the women divers have closed the gap on their counterparts from China and they need only to perform consistently and improve on the execution of techniques.”
“China are not invincible and they are beatable, especially the newcomers who will be under pressure to perform. In the individual competition, we are only 80 points behind while for the team synchronised events, we are only 40 points behind China,” he said.
Malaysia are now ranked second behind China in Asia and in the last Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, Malaysia won four gold and five bronze medals, with Bryan Nickson Lomas and Leong Mun Yee capturing two silvers each.
Yang said it would be hard to repeat this feat in Incheon because many senior divers have already retired.
“We no longer have Bryan, Yeoh Ken Nee or Wang Qiang in the team whereas the Japanese and South Koreans are a improved lot.
“China may field a big team this time and I have high hopes for our women to challenge them for the country’s first diving gold from the Asian Games,” he added.
As for the Commonwealth Games, Yang felt that Malaysia will give Canada, Australia and England a good fight.
“It won’t be easy for Pandelela (Rinong) to defend her 10m platform gold either as her opponents will not be too far behind,” he said.
Pandelela won Malaysia’s first Commonwealth Games diving gold in the women’s 10m platform in New Delhi in 2010.