Pandelela qualifies for 10m platform final and books ticket to the Olympics
SHANGHAI: The big grin on her face said it all as Pandelela Rinong climbed out of the pool after her fifth and final dive at the World Championships here yesterday.
The diminutive lass finished fourth in the 10m platform semi-finals to claim a ticket to next year’s London Olympics. Pandelela also earned a placed in today’s final at the Oriental Sports Centre.
The top 12 divers from the semi-finals all qualified for the Olympics and Pandelela made a splash by registering 348.70 points to become the first Malaysian diver to qualify straight from the worlds.
Chinese diver Hu Yadan put up a stunning performance in the last three dives to qualify for the final on top of the heap with 403.65 points. Olympic champion Chen Ruolin, also of China, was second with a 385.95 total while defending world champion Paola Espinosa of Mexico finished third on 366.65.
Earlier in the preliminaries, Pandelela had qualified for the top 18 semi-finals in fifth spot with a 330.70 total ahead of Espinosa.
Trasie Vivien, the other Malaysian representative, also made it in 16th spot after accumulating 274.85 points. Trasie, however, failed to progress after she ended up in 14th spot with a 294.35 total.
Pandelela could have ended up higher in the semi-finals if not for an erratic performance in the third dive – a 2½ somersault with a half twist on a difficulty of 3.2. Her difficulty level matched the two Chinese divers and the Mexican but the problem was that the reigning Commonwealth Games champion did not execute her attempt cleanly.
Pandelela, who was lying in second spot going into the third dive, only scored 57.60 while the Mexican pulled off a clean dive to chalk up 82.50 points.
Pandelela disappointingly dropped to fifth. But to her credit, she hauled herself up into fourth spot immediately after that.
The 18-year-old was delighted to qualify on merit for the Olympics for the second time.
”It’s better this time as I qualified straight through the World Championships for the first time. I was not nervous as I was optimistic I can make it,” said Pandelela.
With the Olympic berth in the bag, Pandelela’s goal now is win a historic medal for Malaysia.
“I have yet to complete my mission. I will try to win a medal tomorrow,” said Pandelela.
“The third dive is still my weakest routine as I only learned it while training in Dali before coming here.
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