SHAH ALAM: Sarawak's scratch pair Elvis Priestly Clement-Awang Sharzan Nasaruddin, lacked training time together but it did not stop them from upstaging reigning SEA Games champions Nurqayyum Nazmi Mohd Nazim-Yong Rui Jie in the men's 3m springboard synchro event at the Malaysia Games (Sukma) diving competition.
Elvis-Awang scored series of 41.40, 40.20, 60.30, 59.40, 63.24 and 69.36 points to win the gold on a 333.90 total at Aquatik Selangor on Friday (Aug 21) and denied Rui Jie the chance to claim his second gold medal for Federal Territories.
Rui Jie had won the men's 3m springboard event on Wednesday (Aug 19).
Nurqayyum-Rui Jie, who won the gold in the event at the Thailand SEA Games in December, had to settle for second on 331.11 points while Selangor's Ikmal Abror Ibrahim-Haris Mohd Rezal completed the podium with 307.89.
It was the second gold for the 18-year-old Elvis as he partnered Jared Aiden Harold to win the men's 10m platform synchro event earlier.
He was thrilled with their result.
"I'm quite pleased with our performances today as we were not able to train much together.
"We only started training together once we arrived here (Shah Alam). We, however, are not going to go overboard (celebrating this win), we are just grateful for the opportunity to compete together at the right time," said Elvis.
He added that they only focused on their own dives during the final.
"We did not think about the other pairs, we just did our best to focus on our own performances, especially during the last dive. We are grateful to win it over the Thailand SEA Games winners."
