Dhabitah Gives A Sterling Performance In Fort Lauderdale

Nur Dhabitah Sabri is tipped to be next Pandelela of Malaysia.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia may have bagged two medals at the just-concluded FINA United States Grand Prix but it was the performance of young diver Nur Dhabitah Sabri that was the talking point at Fort Lauderdale.

Though Nur Dhabitah did not win any medal, she still managed to make an impression in her first major international outing – thus raising hope that she can be the next Pandelela Rinong.

At 13, Dhabitah just missed out on making the women’s 10m platform semi-finals after finishing 14th in the preliminaries.

London Olympic bronze medallist Pandelela skipped the individual event and partnered Leong Mun Yee to a silver in the platform synchro.

Traisy Vivien Tukiet, who featured in the World Championships in Shanghai in 2011, did reach the semi-finals in 12th place but had a dismal performance in the preliminaries – failing to even breach 300 points (294.00).

Traisy fared even worse in the semi-finals, scoring lowest with 223.70 points.

Dhabitah garnered 264.70 points in the preliminaries but she could have earned more if not for a disastrous final attempt.

What makes Dhabitah’s efforts more compelling is that coach Yang Zhuliang had made her dive with a higher level of difficulty compared to Traisy and Pandelela.

It was also the first time that Dhabitah was diving from the 10m height. Previously, she had the option of performing her routine from either the 5m or 7m height at the junior level.

Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia (Asum) secretary Edwin Chong said there were no plans to drop Traisy from the world meet in Barcelona in July just because of one bad performance.

“With the exception of those who took part in the Diving World Series, the rest of our divers have not gone for any competition so far,” said Edwin.

“We have to be fair to them. Likewise, Dhabitah has done well for someone who has not competed at the Grand Prix meet before.

“We want to start her on a higher level of difficulty so that she can challenge strongly in a few years’ time.

“The competition is not getting any easier ... we want her to be ready when the time comes.

“We will consider taking her to the SEA Games in Myanmar at the end of this year.”

Dhabitah was promoted to the elite diving squad this year after shining in her first senior international competition by bagging a double at the South-East Asia (SEA) Swimming Championships in Singapore last June.

She went on to win two gold medals at the Kuantan Sukma a month later.