Diving Duo Snags Malaysia’s First Olympic Medal

The dynamic duo had consistent dives throughout all five rounds, although they were initially trailing in third place during the third round. They redeemed themselves and gave a splashing (or minimal-splashing) performance that earned them the second spot. Pandelela-Jun Hoong finished strongly with 344.34 points behind China’s Chen Roulin-Liu Huixia’s who bagged the gold medal with 354.00 points. Canadian pair, Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion won the bronze medal with 336.18 points. “We are so proud to have won Malaysia’s first medal at this Olympics,” Pandelela told NST. “There was pressure but we told ourselves to keep calm and focus on doing what we had been doing in training. I am so glad that our hard work has paid off,” she added.

Jun Hoong, on the other hand said that she was trying to put behind her 3m springboard synchronized loss and focus on the next events. “I told myself to forget what had happened in the 3m event and to focus on the 10m platform. Every day is a new day and my focus was on performing in the 10m platform,” she said.