Are we hiring untested diving coaches because top ones are not coming to our shore?

ARE the Malaysia Swimming Federation (MSF) doing the right thing by going for unproven club diving coaches?

MSF brought in Mou Lin and Li Junsong, both only in their early 30s, to help widen the coach-diver ratio in the national set-up this month.

Mou Lin is working with Li Junbai and former national diver Nor Aznizal Najib in handling those under the Podium programme.

Junsong is responsible for the back-up squad under Pelapis programme together with Lu Jianing and former international Datuk Leong Mun Yee.

MSF’s intention is to get the local coaches to learn the ropes from Chinese coaches. Hence the idea of placing one local coach each in the Podium and Pelapis programmes.

The previous Podium programme coach Li Rui has recently left after serving the national team for five years as he felt partly responsible for the disastrous outing at the World Championships in Doha, Qatar, in February.

None of the seniors secured Olympic Games qualifying spots in Doha, leaving Bertrand Rhodict as the lone representative in Paris.

Bertrand, only 18, qualified earlier after finishing 10th in the men’s 10m platform individual final at last year’s world meet in Fukuoka, Japan.

The lack of top coaches who know what it takes to groom a diver to shine in top international meets is what prompted Bertrand to go outside Malaysia to train in the coming weeks leading to Paris Olympics.

Malaysia’s diving fortunes have slowly ebbed since the departure of former head coach Yang Zhuliang six years ago.

Under Zhuliang, Malaysia enjoyed their finest moments when Pandelela Rinong-Cheong Jun Hoong came so close to beating China’s Chen Ruolin-Liu Huixia for the women’s 10m platform synchro gold medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Only 10 points separated China from the Malaysian pair, whose silver effort is still an outstanding achievement.

Malaysia then had gold prospects at the Commonwealth Games and even produced a world champion in Jun Hoong just a few years back but those days are sadly gone.

The current back-up divers are not able to close the gap and it remains to be seen if the current coaching set-up have what it takes to restore the respect Malaysia previously commanded in the regional stage.

There was a suggestion to approach Zhuliang to consider making a comeback to take charge of the Malaysian team but it never got off the ground.

The Youth and Sports Ministry currently under the helm of Hannah Yeoh have already initiated the Safe Sports Code and the authorities would not be comfortable in bringing back Zhuliang, who was in charge when his assistant Huang Qiang was implicated for a sexual offence charge.

It must be stressed though that Huang Qiang has since been acquitted of the charges made against him.

Former Olympian Bryan Nickson Lomas and Khairul Safwan Mansor have good intentions to revive the fortunes of the sport but time will only tell if they can succeed.

The decline in Malaysian diving between Jun Hoong’s historic win in 2017 and now is a big concern and hence, Bryan’s reasoning that it’s time to start from scratch and focus on rebuilding the national diving team first before thinking of big targets.

For a start, Malaysia need to focus on ensuring that the diving team can still maintain their grip at the SEA Games level as Philippines and Singapore are making inroads now.

In Asia, Malaysia were once ranked No. 2 behind China but we are now ranked below Japan, South Korea and North Korea.

Whether it is MSF’s fault for not being able to get a top coach or whether good coaches are fearful of committing to coaching in Malaysia after the controversial dismissal of Huang Quang and Zhuliang, remains a question mark.

But for now, it is going to be a lofty task to turn around Malaysian diving’s fortune.