PETALING JAYA: Pandelela Rinong was not in the best of conditions but still managed to put up a gritty show to claim bronze in the women?s 10m platform individual final in the second leg of the FINA Diving World Series in Beijing.
Pandelela made heads turn for the second week in a row as she fought back to overtake Mexican Paola Espinosa, the 2009 world champion, for the bronze in the last two dives.
It was the second individual bronze medal for Pandelela, having bagged the first in the first leg in Dubai last week.
The 19-year-old Malaysian was in fourth position behind the Mexican after the first three attempts and it looked like a medal was out of her reach.
But she pulled off a stunner ? making a clean entry ? in the next dive to earn 84.80 and get back in medal contention.
Pandelela scored 76.80 in the fifth and final dive for a 372.15 total which was good enough to secure the bronze behind the two Chinese standouts ? Chen Ruolin and Hu Yadan, the gold and silver medallists from the World Championships in Shanghai last year.
Ruolin, also the Olympic champion, was a class above to take gold with 422.55 points while Yadan, who did not win a medal in Dubai, also broke the 400-point barrier with 400.65.
Pandelela?s performance augurs well ahead of the London Olympics as she showed her ability to take on the top ranked divers in the series, which is for the best eight in the world.
Pandelela qualified for the final with the third highest score (351.20) in the preliminaries behind Yadan (364.90) and Ruolin (392.85).
Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia secretary Edwin Chong was delighted with Pandelela?s performance considering her back muscle pain before the meet.
?We don?t have our own doctor or masseur with the team, so we told her to take things easy,? said Edwin from Beijing.
?Pandelela is just doing her normal routines but she had a very good fourth dive and that helped push up her score. It?s her best score so far.?
Pandelela will partner Leong Mun Yee in the women?s 10m platform synchro today.
Source: http://thestar.com.my/sports/story.asp?file=/2012/3/24/sports/10979937&sec=sports
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