KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Aquatics (MAS) diving technical director Bryan Nickson Lomas believes Bertrand Rhodict Lises has a realistic chance of making the final at the Paris Olympics next month.
Lomas anticipates that Rhodict will have to at least achieve a score of 420 to secure a spot in the medal decider for the men's 10 metre platform individual event.
And to achieve that, they may take less risks in the preliminaries and semi-finals.
"Rhodict is currently working on a new dive which he tested at the Australian Open Championships (Adelaide) yesterday," said Lomas when contacted today.
"It (new dive) is still a work in progress. Rhodict will keep working on it in the lead up to the Olympics.
"We may decide to have Rhodict use his old dives for the preliminaries and semi-finals at the Olympics and keep the new dive for the final, if he qualifies. There is nothing to lose (in the final).
"But this will depend on how he performs in training after this, if he improves his consistency on the new dive, we can use it (from early rounds).
"I believe Rhodict has a realistic chance of making the final. He needs to score about 420 in prelims and the semi-finals which is achievable.
"His personal best 449 so it is not impossible. If he can perform at the same level he did at the Fukuoka World Championships last year he will make it."
Lomas disclosed that Rhodict will return to Australia for the second phase of his training camp next week and will head to the United Kingdom two weeks before the Olympics start.
"He will be in the UK for about a week and will continue training there," added Lomas.
"It is to allow him to acclimatise to the weather in Europe as well as the time zone there."
Rhodict is the only Malaysian diver to qualify on merit for the Paris Olympics.
Nur Dhabitah Sabri and Ooi Tze Liang have a very slim chance of securing a place in Paris if there are unused quota slots available. This is expected to be known by tomorrow.
