PETALING JAYA, Feb 25 — Ahmad Amsyar Azman can still be Malaysia's next male diver to the Olympics after Chew Yiwei’s failure to qualify in the 10m platform at the World Cup semifinal in Rio, Brazil.
Yiwei only managed 290.55 points to finish last in the preliminaries, which leaves Ooi Tze Liang the only national male diver to qualify for Rio in the 3m springboard and 10m platform, earned at the Asia Diving Cup last year.
“It’s hard but possible. The top 18 divers at the World Cup will make the cut to the Olympic this August, fortunately seven of them have already qualified last year,” said Amsyar, who added aquatics governing body Fina will choose the 19th to 25th placed divers to Rio.
“China’s Cao Yuan who had finished 19th has already qualified while Chris Mears, who was 22nd could not qualify as Britain have maximised their quotas,” said Amsyar.
Each country can have only have two qualifiers for an individual event which gives Amsyar the opportunity to fill the additional slot.
“If I make the cut, this will be my debut at the Games,” said Amsyar, who finished 24th in the 3m springboard preliminaries with 380.50 points.
Malaysia have booked three slots to the Olympics at the World Cup through Pandelela Rinong-Jun Hoong (10m platform synchro), Jun Hoong-Nur Dhabitah Sabri (3m springboard synchro) and Jun Hoong (3m springboard individual).
Before the World Cup, the national divers secured five individual spots through Tze Liang (men’s 3m springboard and 10m platform), Wendy Ng (women’s 3m springboard), Nur Dhabitah Sabri (women’s 10m platform) and Pandelela (women’s 10m platform) last year.
