KUALA LUMPUR: The National Sports Council (NSC) will leave it to the Road to Gold (RTG) committee to decide national diver Pandelela Rinong's status in the RTG programme.
NSC deputy director-general Jefri Ngadirin, however, said NSC will continue to support Pandelela regardless of the committee's decision.
Pandelela failed to qualify on merit for the Paris Olympics in both her events - women's 10m platform individual and synchronised - at the ongoing Doha World Aquatic Championship.
"We will ask RTG (committee) to decide her status," said Jefri recently.
"We will still retain Pandelela in the Podium Programme, in fact, we had already extended her (Podium) contract until the Bangkok Sea Games next year.
"Even if she is not in the Olympics, she can still focus on other competitions. She can still be competitive in these (non-Olympic) competitions.
"At the Sea Games level she is still far ahead of our competitors, though normally we send our juniors to the Sea Games."
RTG is an elite athlete preparation programme intended to provide cream-of-the-crop athletes the additional support they need to challenge for gold in Paris, LA2028 2028 and other major international competitions.
In addition to extra sport science support, competition exposure and coaching, athletes under RTG also receive an additional allowance of RM3,000 a month.
Jefri added that NSC are aware that age could be a factor for Pandelela, 31, and are keen to review the performance report for the national divers in Doha from Malaysia Aquatics (MAS) diving technical director Bryan Nickson once the competition ends.
"Her score in the individual event was substantially lower than what she has achieved before. We have to find out the reason for this," said Jefri.
"But at the same time we are aware that for Pandelela, age could also be a factor."
The diving competition at the Doha World Championships will end on Saturday. The swimming events will begin on Sunday.