PETALING JAYA: Back-up divers Chew Yiwei and Jasmine Lai capped a perfect end to Malaysia’s campaign with a sweep of the individual 3m springboard titles in Group A (16-18) at the Asian Age-Group Aquatics Championships in Jakarta.
Yiwei, who had been rested for two days after straining his back muscles in training, returned to action to win the boy’s 3m springboard gold medal with 490.45 points.
He finished ahead of Kuwait’s Rashid Alharbi, who managed 467.80 points with the bronze going to Indonesia’s Andre Andriyan with 449.80 points.
It was the second gold medal for the Bukit Jalil Sports School student who had won the 1m springboard event last weekend.
Jasmine brought her campaign to a memorable close by winning the girls’ 3m springboard final with 416.50 points to complete a golden sweep of all four Olympic titles.
Malaysian team-mate Kam Ling Kar took the silver with 415.4 points ahead of Japan’s Yuka Kobayashi, who managed 397.8 points.
Jasmine had also won the platform individual event and partnered Ling Kar to come out tops in the synchro disciplines for springboard and platform.
The duo will return to Indonesia next month to compete in their first SEA Games in Palembang and their performances in the Asian age-group meet will put them in good stead as they face their first assignment at the senior level.
Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia secretary Edwin Chong is happy the back-up divers made their presence felt in the absence of the Chinese divers, who did not compete because they had commitments in their own National Inter-city Championships.
”We only took part in two events on the last day of competition and we managed to win both to end with a total of seven gold medals.
”In fact, we only sent a small team of eight divers made up mostly of second stringers.
”We are happy they performed to the best of their abilities,” he said.
Altogether, Malaysia finished with a total medals haul of 7-9-1 in diving.
Malaysia are only represented by the divers in the Asian age-group meet, which is held every two years.
The event was supposed to be held in Palembang to test out the SEA Games venue for aquatics but was brought to Jakarta at the last moment as the original venue was not ready.
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