Diving: Tze Liang Came A Cropper In Barcelona

Tze Liang's fifth dive sets him back from making the top-12 final in Barcelona. -GLENN GUAN/The Star

BARCELONA: His body entered the water at the wrong angle for a lowly 49.50 in the fifth dive and young Ooi Tze Liang’s hopes of following in the footsteps of Bryan Nickson Lomas in making it to the World Championships final of the men’s 10m platform was gone.

Tze Liang, the last Malaysian diver in action, was all set to achieve a breakthrough by making it to the top 12-final for the first time as he was in 12th spot with two dives remaining.

He did well to string 72.00 for the first three dives and remained inside the decisive bracket with a 74.25 in the fourth dive.

But the big splash in the fifth dive pulled him down to 15th.

Tze Liang recovered with a final dive of 72.00 but there was nothing he could do as he ended 14th with 411.75.

Tze Liang did well earlier to reach the top-18 semis for the first time, amassing a personal best 412.55 for 12th spot.

Tze Liang even fared better than fancied British diver Tom Daley, who finished a rung below with 406.40.

However, Daley, the world champion in Rome in 2009 and the London Olympic bronze medallist, came back strongly to qualify for the final.

Daley finished seventh with 452.70 while reigning Olympic champion David Boudia of United States topped the semis with 534.40.

Mexico’s Ivan Garcia was second with 522.60 while defending champion Qiu Bo of China, the Beijing Olympic gold medallist in 2008, was sixth in 457.55.

Tze Liang expressed mixed feelings on his inconsistency but was pleased to have given his best considering he was placed 21st in his world meet debut in Shanghai in 2011.

“I achieved a personal best and scored better than what I managed in Shanghai.

“I was not having too high expectations of breaking into the final in the first place as I know I still have to a lot to learn and to catch up with the world’s best.“Moreover, I have not trained much for the individual platform as I had to do the synchro springboard (with Ahmad Amsyar) after Bryan quit recently.”