PANDELELA Rinong always delivers when the chips are down. And the evergreen diver made the country proud again by winning the women's 10m platform bronze medal at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary on Monday.
It was the 29-year-old's second world meet medal after her bronze at the 2015 Kazan edition.
The win will definitely motivate Pandelela when she heads to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games next month. She is now seen as a favourite in Birmingham.
Pandelela was a picture of consistency as she garnered 338.85 points in the final on Monday.
It was an improved performance by the four-time Olympian as she had only tallied 332.10 and 313.15 in the preliminaries and semi-finals.
China's Chen Ruxi and Quan Hongchan grabbed the gold and silver.
Reigning world champion Ruxi, 17, showed she is back where she belonged after a 417.25 effort, while Olympic gold medallist Hongchan, 15, was not far behind with 416.95.
But for Pandelela, finishing on the podium marked a strong comeback on the world stage following her disappointing outing at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
The Sarawak-born, fresh from winning the World Cup, finished 12th in a field of 12 divers in the final in Tokyo.
On Monday, despite being placed fourth after the second dive, Pandelela continued to deliver consistent dives to eventually pull herself into medal contention.
"I guess we can say that this is my redemption after the Olympics," said Pandelela on the FINA website on Monday.
"I see every success and failure as a motivation to do better. And I am always inspired to watch the Chinese divers perform.
"And at 29, this medal definitely shows that I can still compete individually," added Pandelela, who was the oldest diver in the field.
Overall, it is her sixth medal at the world meet since making her debut at the 2009 Rome edition.
The two-time Olympic medallist is, however, not quite done yet. She will compete in the platform synchro with Nur Dhabitah Sabri in Budapest.
At the 2019 edition in Gwangju, she grabbed a silver alongside the now-retired Leong Mun Yee — her best achievement at the world meet.
Meanwhile, it was a poor outing for Syafiq Puteh and Chew Yiwei in the men's 3m springboard event, as they both failed to reach the semi-finals. Syafiq only tallied 327.35 to finish 35th out of 55 divers, while Yiwei finished fourth from the bottom on 255.65.