by Jeremy Veno August 24, 2010, Tuesday
Sarawak’s diving sensation creates another Olympic milestone with an additional silver .
KUCHING: Pandelela Rinong creates another Olympics milestone when she won an additional silver medal in the Youth Olympics 2010 in Singapore last night.
PRIDE OF SARAWAK: Pandelela with her silver medal from the 3metre diving event. Sarawak’s diving sensation battle her way to second place in the girl’s 3metre event with a total score of 444.15 after four dives. — Reuters photo
There were twelve finalists for the event with China’s Liu Jiao as the victor with 511.35 points while Potyekhina Victoriya of Ukraine in third place after garnering 433.55 points.
The Bidayuh lass created history as the first Malaysian female athlete to haul medals from an Olympics event when she won her first silver on Sunday at the 10-metre platform dive.
“We are very proud of her achievement,” said the director of the Sarawak State Sports Council Francis Nyurang Ding who applauded the diver and for her talent.
“Even though being a national athlete, deep in our hearts she is still our own state athlete,” said Francis who recalled the days when Pandelela was discovered in Kuching and was put through the sport council’s development programme which was the base work for her success today.
Francis was however in jest when he mentioned that the 17-year-old Bidayuh lass is regrettably not qualified to be on the state contingent for the Sukma games.
“Nevertheless, she has reached the highest level of being an Olympian and a medal winner. So an incentive from MSNS is definite,” said Francis who will be bringing up the topic to the board in the next meeting.
Regardless of the amount to be given, the incentive according to Francis is a reflects the sports council’s gratitude and recognition to Pandelela who is living up to the ‘Agi Idup Agi Ngelaban’ spirit.
“I do not see anything wrong for us (MSNS) to give her some incentive, even though she is a national athlete and an Olympian,” he added of Pandelela who is currently a student at the National Sports School in Bukit Jalil. On her strive to continue her trainings despite a few divers having fallout due to the strenuous and rigid training methods under their Chinese coach, Francis applauded Pandelala saying that her patience and perseverance have put her above others.
On Sunday at the Tao Payoh swimming complex, Singapore, Pandelela collected a total of 453.35 points, 25.25 points behind China’s Liu Jaio who took the gold medal. Pandelela who is nursing a sprained neck was quoted as saying in a national daily that her last two dives was kept simple to be on the safe side of not aggravating her injury.
Liu Jaio who is the Asian Youth Games gold medallist however impressed the judges when she executed a more difficult style to near perfection which gave her the gold.
The bronze medal was however won by Korea’s Sin Ji Hyang with a total of 430.20 points.
Pandelela who flew to Singapore for the Youth Olympics games till Aug 26, will make a return to Kunming, China to undergo her intensive trainings for the Commonwealth games in New Delhi in October.
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