THE national diving team expect the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics to set off a chain of rescheduling,
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the International Olympic Committee and Tokyo organisers to shift the Games from July 24-Aug 9, 2020 to July 23-Aug 8, 2021.
That is, however, a tricky challenge for FINA, the world governing body for aquatics, as the biennial World Championships are due to be held in Fukuoka, Japan on July 16-Aug 1 next year.
This has left the staging of the World Championships in question. FINA now have to explore the possibilities of either staging the world meet before July, or have it after the Olympics or push it back to 2020.
It would certainly be messy if the World Championships are delayed until 2022 because it could then clash with other major events such as the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, European swimming championships and Pan Pacific swimming championships.
On top of that, FINA have yet to decide on new dates for the postponed Diving World Cup, which was supposed to be the last qualifying event for the Tokyo Olympics.
The World Cup was initially scheduled for April in Tokyo but has now been delayed to June pending further notice.
“It’s good that the Tokyo Olympics dates have been decided early but it would certainly be tougher for the divers if the world meet next year is brought forward,” said Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia (Asum) secretary Mae Chen.
“FINA need to go back to the drawing board to decide on the new dates.
“There are a few possibilities and if the world meet is to be used as an Olympic qualifying event, then our divers need to focus on that too.
“We don’t know when the Covid-19 situation will return to normal and it is possible that we may not have any international competitions this year.
“Our juniors are also affected as domestic competitions have been pushed back but we’re hoping we can have some events like the Malaysian Open, Malaysian Diving GP and MSSM meet back in September,” added Mae.
To date, only four divers: Pandelela Rinong, Leong Mun Yee, Wendy Ng and Nur Dhabitah Sabri have booked their tickets to the Olympics.