Diving history-maker PAMG Pandelela wins World Cup gold with Japan’s ARAI Matsuri second

Malaysia’s flagbearer at the London 2012 opening ceremony, Pamg Pandelela won gold in the women’s 10m platform at the penultimate event at the FINA Diving World Cup with a total of 355.70. Hosts Japan saw Arai Matsuri taking silver (342.00), and Canada’s Caeli McKay snatching bronze (338.55) from Britain’s Andrea Spendolini Sirieix in the final round (333.90).

Leading from first round to last, Pamg adds the title to her plethora of medals including the 10m synchro silver she won with team-mate CHEONG Jun Hoong at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Pamg’s history-making career also includes becoming the first female Malaysian athlete to win an Olympic medal, with bronze in 10m platform at London 2012, and the first Malaysian to win an Olympic medal in any sport other than badminton.

Arai’s impressive diving entries helped the Japanese athlete to a silver medal, and she will no doubt be a crowd favourite come the summer, along with her enthusiastic coach.

The battle for the final place on the podium came to a head in the final round. Despite performing the biggest dive in the programme in the penultimate round, a reverse three and a half somersault, McKay still sat in fourth position behind Britain’s Spendolini Sirieix.

Spendolini Sirieix performed the back two and half somersaults with one and half twists in pike position favoured by many athletes in the final round, scoring 73.60 for a 333.90 total.

McKay needed 78 to win bronze, executing a wonderful dive to score 81.60, sneaking into bronze position on the very last dive.

Semi-final woes and history for Ireland

Not featured in the 12-diver final was 2017 world champion and yesterday’s top qualifier Cheong (345.30) who stuttered in this morning’s semi-final coming 18th and last (237.35) following an off day for the Malaysian.

Tanya Watson was within a whisker of becoming the first Irish woman to make a World Cup final until a splashy entry on her fifth and final dive left the 19-year-old two points short, with a score of 295.50, finishing 14th. Nevertheless, the force was with Watson on Tuesday (4 May) when by virtue of coming 16th in the preliminary event, she became the first female Irish diver to ever qualify for the Olympics.

More to come

Tomorrow sees the conclusion of the Tokyo Diving World Cup with the men’s 3m springboard semi-final and final. Brits Daniel Goodfellow and James Healy qualified in first (487.50) and second (478.20) respectively, in the preliminaries earlier today, and will be looking to add to Great Britain’s medal haul of three gold medals and one silver, aiming to cement Team GB’s position at the top of the event’s medal table.

Goodfellow already has one gold under his belt in the 10m platform synchro with dive partner Jack Laugher, dominating the event on the second day of the competition (Sunday). Laugher opted not to compete in the individual 3m springboard event in which he won gold at Rio 2016.