Pandelela Rinong-Leong Mun Yee saved their best for last to snatch a bronze medal for Malaysia in the Diving World Series final leg in Kazan, Russia.

Pandelela-Mun Yee were not at their best form in the last two legs – in Dubai, United Arab Emirates last month and in Windsor, Canada, last week – and settled for fourth in the women's 10m platform synchro event.

It looked like they were headed for another fourth placing at the Kazan Aquatics Palace on Friday when they remained in fifth spot after the first three dives with scores of 51.00, 48.00 and 58.50.

But they put up a better show in the next dive to 68.16 to move into fourth spot.

A nice entry in their final dive saw them earning 77.76 for a total of 303.42 points.

The Malaysian pair confirmed the bronze medal when Britain's Tonia Couch-Lois Toulson could only manage a 294.30 total.

It was the second bronze medal in the prestigious invitation-only series for the pair, who had also splashed to a bronze in the opening leg in Beijing, China last month.

Canadians Meaghan Benfeito-Roseline Filion were lucky to just finish ahead of the Malaysians for the silver with 304.50 total.

China's Chen Ruolin-Liu Huixia maintained their winning streak on the 10m platform by taking gold with 340.50 total.

National diving head coach Yang Zhuliang admitted that it wasn’t the best performance from Pandelela-Mun Yee.

“We were lucky to win the medal. The other pairs also made mistakes,” he said.

“Pandelela-Mun Yee performed better than their rivals in the final dive to finish on the podium.

“For the Olympics, our closest rivals for a medal will be Britain and Canada. China are a class above at the moment.”

RESULTS

Men's 10m platform synchro: 1. Chen Aisen-Lin Yue (Chn) 485.67, 2. Maksym Dolgov-Oleksandr Gorshkovozov (Ukr) 450.87, 3. Thomas Daley-Daniel Goodfellow (Bri) 442.59.

Source:
courtesy of THE STAR

by Lim Teik Huat

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