KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Swimming Federation (MAS) are looking to have divers under the national team programme, including those at the backup level, work on raising their dive difficulty (DD) levels.
MAS secretary-general Andy Low said a number of divers at the national level have not progressed in this aspect for some time as was observed during the Malaysia Open Diving Championships which concluded in Bukit Jalil yesterday.
Big names such as Pandelela Rinong and Nur Dhabitah Sabri did not compete in the meet.
"In addition to the national team and backup divers, we also invited state teams to compete in the Malaysia Open to give everyone a chance to benchmark themselves against divers from other countries," said Andy today.
"It was also a chance for our coaches to see where the weaknesses are and try and improve on them.
"Some of our divers DD are still very low and have remained that way for some time. This is one aspect we have to focus on improving.
"Some of the state divers were also on par with our (national) backup divers which should not be the case. Those training at the national centre should be a step ahead.
"Our technical director (Bryan Nickson Lomas) was here everyday to monitor the divers performances.
"He will sit down with the coaches to discuss (next course of action), we all have to move forward together."
The national team emerged the overall champions in the tournament after bagging five gold, three silver and three bronzes over the three-day event.
Sarawak came in second on 2-2-0 while Uzbekistan (2-1-1) rounded out the top-three.
Singapore (1-1-1), Indonesia (0-2-0) and Hong Kong (0-1-1) were fourth, fifth and sixth overall.