UNFORTUNATELY, despite all the sacrifices and hard work, it appears that diver Cheong Jun Hoong has missed the cut for the Tokyo Olympics next month.
Malaysia Swimming (MS) confirmed the unfortunate development as Fina, the world governing body for aquatics, finalised the 136 entrants for the Olympics yesterday.
It is a tremendous blow for the 31-year-old Jun Hoong, who had tried her best to qualify for her third straight Olympics.
The Perak-born, who underwent knee surgery in 2018 and successively missed three years of action, was thought to have done enough after reaching the semi-finals of the women's 10m platform individual at the Diving World Cup in Tokyo last month.
The 2017 world champion, who reunited with former national head coach Yang Zhuliang in 2019, however, fared badly in the semi-finals and failed to reach the final. It proved to be her undoing.
Only the top-15 finishers at the World Cup earned Olympic quotas as there can only be 68 divers for men and women respectively to make up the 136 entrants.
Jun Hoong missed out as she was 18th overall.
Also missing the cut was men's diver Syafiq Puteh as he finished 23rd in the 3m springboard event, making it the first time since 2008 that Malaysia will not have a male diver in the Olympics.
"Fina have concluded the tabulation on the final quota for diving slots for 68 men and women to the Olympics, and we were notified that both Jun Hoong and Syafiq did not make the cut," said MS secretary-general Mae Chen.
"It is disappointing. Had Jun Hoong reached the final, she would have qualified for the Olympics.
"We were hopeful that the absence of some strong competitors from top diving nations would have at least given both Pandelela (Rinong) and Jun Hoong a chance on the podium at the World Cup."
While Jun Hoong's failure to qualify is disappointing, it also shows that the standard of Malaysian diving is deteriorating.
At the 2012 London Olympics, Malaysia secured 10 quotas which were followed by eight quotas at the 2016 Rio edition, while this time, only four slots were secured.
The Olympic-bound divers are Pandelela, Leong Mun Yee, Wendy Ng and Nur Dhabitah Sabri.