Dhabitah will return to train with national diving team next month

PETALING JAYA: It’s a relief for Malaysia as experienced female diver Nur Dhabitah (pic) Sabri will return to train with the national diving team in Bukit Jalil next month.

The 25-year-old versatile diver was supposed to be on indefinite leave until end of the year and thus give up on the chance to be with the team going for the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore next month.

Dhabitah’s absence was sorely felt by the national team as they struggled to come up with a good replacement for her in the springboard department.

Thus, Malaysia are not represented in the women’s springboard discipline at the upcoming world meet for the first time with only two-time Olympian Pandelela Rinong and newcomer Lee Yiat Qing entered for the 10m platform individual and synchro events.

Malaysia, though, have five male divers in the fray for the world meet - Enrique Harold Maccartney, Elvis Priestly Clement, Mohd Syafiq Puteh, Nurqayyum Nazmi Mohd Nazim and Yong Rui Jie.

There would have been a question mark on whether Dhabitah would indeed return in the first place but she has informed Malaysia Aquatics of her intention to rejoin the national team training soon.

Malaysia Aquatics secretary Andy Low said the Kuala Lumpur-born diver is part of the national team set-up and her service will be crucial to the diving team’s hopes of contributing medals at the Asian Games in Japan and Commonwealth Games in Scotland next year.

“She has applied for leave from the Podium Programme but is welcome to join any time.

“But we will assess her fitness when she comes back and like everybody else, she will have to go through the Minimum Qualifying Score (MQS) process if she is to be considered for the future competitions in store.

“We already have the MQS in place from this year and that’s why we cannot send everybody like we used to in the past for a major competition like the World Championships. In fact, divers had to meet the MQS at two out of three designated competitions,” said Andy.

Dhabitah is a three-time Olympian and reached the women’s 3m springboard final in Paris last year.

She is also a good diver on the 10m platform and has partnered Pandelela to take bronze in the event at the 2022 edition of the world meet in Budapest, Hungary.

However, she got married two years ago and indicated her desire after the Paris Olympics to only focus on the 3m springboard event to be able to manage her body condition better.

Dhabitah claimed silver in the 3m springboard synchro with Wendy Ng Yan Yee and bronze with Pandelela in the 10m platform synchro at the last Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023.