KUCHING: The future of Datuk Pandelela Rinong Pamg is not over yet although her bid for the Paris Olympics may be over.
She can still train and compete in the World Championships and other competitions like the SEA Games or Asian Games as she is still under contract with the National Sports Council who will take care of her training.
According to the Malaysian Technical director for diving Bryan Nickson Lomas, he said Pandelela has a bright future as she can do many things after her diving career is over while she is also an exceptional talent.
He said due to the lack of 10m platform diving talents, the nation still need her as the gap between Pandelela and her understudies is wide.
“As she said, she will bounce back and still want to train, she should continue to train and compete as there are many events she can go for such as the world diving championships.
“The problem is that in Malaysia we do not have a stand-in talent who can match her standard at the moment.
“Her understudies such as Rania (Nur Elisha Rania Muhd Muhd Abrar Raj) and Kimberly (Bong) still need a year to improve while national diver Dhabitah prefers the 3m event as Malaysia lacks divers in the 10m platform event which is more difficult.
“In the last world championships the gap in terms of points scored between Pandelela and Rania the gap is too big.
“As for Lela (Pandelela) she is very talented as she was groomed by China coach Yang Shu Liang while when she first started. Coaches like Wang Jinlan who was also my coach helped laid the foundation for her.
“Even when she retires she has a good future as she has a degree in sports science to fall back onto and with her reputation she can do lot of thing while she receives her pension.
Recently the Sarawak Minister of Youth and Sports and Entrepreneur Development Datuk Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah had suggested that Pandelela, 31 can become a state diving coach in the future given her extensive experience and knowledge.
Pandelela, still the national number one in the 10m platform event and winner of two Olympic medals, failed to qualify for the next Olympics in Paris after he finished in the 29th place and failed to advance to the semi-finals in the recent Doha World Aquatics Championships.
Another Sarawak diver Nur Elisha who was the only Malaysian in the preliminaries finished in 44th on 167.55 points.
“Malaysia has potential talents like Nur Rania and Kimberly Bong from Sarawak in the back-up squad as well as a few male divers but they are not ready yet as in women events you need five dives but for men they require six dives,” Bryan said.
Bryan who was the first diver to go the Olympics said that Nur Rania and Kimberly were both plagued by injuries which hampered their improvements even though they received constant physiotherapy sessions and exercises.
He said there are a number of fine divers from Kuala Lumpur and Perak in the back-up squad while Sarawak has a big number of male divers such as Bertrand Rhoduct Lises and SEA Games gold medalist Enrique MacCartney among them with Bertrand the first Malaysian to qualify for the Paris Olympics 2024.
