KUALA LUMPUR: Diver Nur Dhabitah Sabri kept her podium bid alive at the Paris Olympics by advancing to the women's 3m springboard individual final at Paris Aquatics Centre today.
The 25-year-old wild card entry chalked up 286.95 points over five dives to make the top-12 cut in eighth spot.
Dhabitah got off to an encouraging start, scoring 67.50 and 55.50 points for her first two dives. However, she lost momentum with a poor third attempt, yielding only 46.50 points and dropping six rungs to 12th place.
To her credit, Dhabitah managed to stop the slide. She first produced a modest effort of 57.00 points to climb to 10th before executing a fine 'Forward 3 1/2 Somersault' with a 3.1 degree of difficulty, earning 60.45 points and propelling her to eighth place.
China's two-time world champion Chen Yi Wen topped the 18-woman standings with a dominant 360.85 total, well ahead of Australia's Maddison Keeney (334.70) and Italy's Chiara Pellacani (324.75).
The women's 3m springboard final will take place on Friday. Dhabitah aims to improve upon her career-best fourth-place finish in Tokyo three years ago. She will need to up her game to contend for a top-three finish.
Although Dhabitah finished the semi-finals in a better position than her 12th place in Wednesday's preliminary round, it's worth noting that she improved her total points by only three points. In the preliminary, Dhabitah amassed 283.65 points.
A relieved Dhabitah said: "It was a roller coaster ride for me and I've made a good comeback.
"I was feeling down after the third dive, but coach told me to not dwell on the past and he wanted to see how I recover from this setback."
Dhabitah also believes that she has made a point by accomplishing her target of reaching the final. This is considering that she made the field in the eleventh hour, where she was given the nod through an unused quota.
"Although I made it through a wild card, I wanted to prove myself that I belong and deserve to be one of the group Olympians competing here," she said.
"My preparations may not be as good as the rest due to short notice, I just gave everything I have."