Time to purify the murky waters of Malaysian diving

IT was exactly 20 years ago that Bryan Nickson Lomas was interviewed by the renowned Time magazine in a city steeped in Olympic tradition.

As Hannah Beech, the Shanghai bureau chief of the magazine, jotted down her notes, I sat next to Bryan, patiently waiting for my turn in the Olympic village in Athens.

Hannah was not the only foreign journalist who wanted a piece of Bryan. Everybody else wanted to for the Sarawakian was not only the youngest, smallest and lightest male competitor of the Athens Olympics 2004, he was also the Malaysian contingent’s flagbearer.

Like me, they wanted to have fresh quotes from Bryan ahead of the opening ceremony.

Two months later, Bryan who took up diving without learning to swim, emerged as the world junior champion in the 15th FINA World Junior Championship in Belem, Brazil.

How time flies.

Today, Bryan, having retired before turning 23 in 2013, has transformed himself from champion diver into a TV personality and now, the technical director for diving for Malaysian Swimming Federation (MSF).

In his capacity, Bryan has to deal with the aftermath of his fellow Sarawakian, Pandelela Rinong’s failure to land a spot at the Paris Olympics in July, which has triggered an issue of national proportions.

Bryan has another Hannah to entertain this time – Hannah Yeoh, the Sports Minister.

If we dive deeper into the issue, the writing has been on the wall for the diving team. Click on the search button on the social media postings and one may discover several stakeholders, including the National Sports Council (NSC), expressing their concerns since 2021.

NSC in fact had organised a workshop on sports development, including that of diving, in 2014, where I was one of the moderators, with the then MSF assistant secretary, Mae Chen and former diver Yeoh Ken Nee among the participants.

In order to produce more Bryans, Pandelelas and Cheong Jun Hoongs, one of the resolutions was for the chief coach, Yang Zhuliang, to share his coaching module with his local counterparts.

Since his arrival ahead of the SEA Games 2001, when the diving team made a clean sweep of the eight gold on offer, Zhuliang made a huge impact to the national team before leaving for Australia in 2005.

He was lured back to Kuala Lumpur in 2009 and granted PR status in 2013.

Zhuliang’s presence coincided with the golden age of diving, with Pandelela winning the bronze medal in her pet event in London 2012 before combining with Jun Hoong for the women’s 10m platform synchro silver medal in Rio 2016.

Zhuliang’s feather in his cap was Jun Hoong’s world title in 10m platform in Budapest in 2017 when the injury-prone diver defeated four-time world champion Si Yajie and Rio 2016 gold medallist, Ren Qian.

Behind the scenes however, things were simmering.

Some senior divers complained to Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin that Zhuliang had become too harsh and had created a culture of fear, leading to the coach’s departure five months after delivering Malaysia’s first world champion.

At the same time Huang Qiang, who arrived in 2007 and granted citizenship in 2012, was charged in court for raping a 20-year old diver. He has since then been set free.

Months later, without Zhuliang to watch over them, videos surfaced on social media showing seven national divers, including three seniors, fearlessly partying and drinking alcohol at a training camp in Guangzhou. Two of the three senior divers remain in the present set-up.

So you see, the pool is not exactly crystal clear. Everything is not so hunky dory in the world of diving.

Athletes, regardless of stature, are only as good as their last performance.

Despite the calls for her to retire, Pandelela intends to continue diving until the juniors made the step up.

As the nation’s most decorated diver, Pandelela’s place in the annals of Malaysian sports is guaranteed.

Ask Datuk Lee Chong Wei, Datuk Nicol David and Datuk Mirnawan Nawawi, members of the Road to Gold (RTG) committee who quit their respective sports even when the pretenders to their throne were nowhere in sight.

Until today, they remain champions in our heart.

In order to purify matters in diving, an in-depth analysis that is devoid of sentiments is the most practical thing to do to investigate why Bertrand Rhodict is Malaysia’s only diver on merit in Paris 2024.

Diving is a measurable sport after all.

But with common sense no longer common in society, politicians tend to please keyboard warriors who lack objectivity and have no access to inside information.

The media, as usual, is made the scapegoat. How convenient.