KUALA LUMPUR – National divers need to up their degree of difficulty after ending the Diving World Cup in Montreal, Canada without a medal, said Malaysia Aquatics diving technical director Bryan Nickson Lomas.
“Bertrand (Rhodict Lises) looks confident in his event but he needs to up his degree of difficulty.
“(Ooi) Tze Liang has shown improvement in his scores, but I think he can do better, particularly in refining certain dives.
“It is tough for us to compete in synchro events as to be competitive against others, we need to incorporate higher degrees of difficulty,” said Bryan when contacted by Scoop.
Tze Liang, Bertrand and Enrique Maccartney Harold carried Malaysia’s challenge in the first leg of the three-stop series.
On Friday, Tze Liang registered a total score of 374.25 points to finish 14th in the preliminary round of the 3m individual springboard at the Olympic Park Sports Centre.
However, he fell short of advancing to the final, his score just 11.4-points away from 12th-place finisher Rodrigo Diego Lopez of Mexico.
Yesterday, Bertrand, the sole Malaysian diver to qualify for the Paris Olympics, finished 11th out of 12 divers in the 10m individual platform, after putting up a total score of 389.85 points.
Despite his efforts, he trailed significantly behind gold-medallist Yang Hao of China, who amassed 533.00 points.
Randal Willars Valdez of Mexico (530.90) finished second and another Chinese diver, Lian Junjie, (514.65) rounded off the podium.
Today, Bertrand continued his campaign alongside Enrique in the 10m synchronised platform, securing a ninth-place finish in the final with a total score of 353.67 points.
The podium in the synchronised event was dominated by the Chinese duo Junjie-Hao, claiming gold with a score of 457.23 points, followed by Kevin Berlin Reyes and Valdez of Mexico in second place (428.97), and Britain’s Noah Williams-Thomas Daley secured third place (417.93).
No women national divers took part in this leg of the World Cup.
The 2024 season will next move to Berlin, Germany from March 21 to 24, followed by the super final in Xi’an, China from April 19 to 21. – March 4, 2024