KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Aquatics (MAS) have given national divers heading to the World Junior Championships in Rio de Janeiro (Nov 24-Dec 1) a relatively modest target to achieve.
MAS diving technical director Bryan Nickson Lomas is expecting the divers to at least make the final in their respective events.
"We expect our divers to get into the final and achieve a top-five finish. We always want to target medals and we do feel we can do better, but right now we are choosing to be humble," said Bryan today.
"Most of the divers in the team competed at the World Junior Championships in Canada two years ago, but we also have first-timers in the squad."
He added the divers selected have passed the Minimum Qualifying Standard (MQS) at least once to make the squad for Brazil.
Senior and junior divers are required to pass the MQS twice to qualify to represent the country at international meets.
Bryan, however, disclosed that the scoring margin was lowered for the junior divers heading to Brazil so they could get exposure ahead of big plans next year.
"We did this to give the junior divers who only passed the MQS once a chance to feature in Brazil. We have big plans for next year, and we feel it is important to give them exposure at the World Junior Championships.
"We feel if some of these youngsters don't feature at the World Juniors, it would be a wasted opportunity," Bryan added.
Malaysia's girl's squad will be spearheaded by Cambodia Sea Games 10m platform gold medalist Lee Yiat Qing and Nurul Farisya Alia Affendi, who won three gold medals at the Sarawak Malaysia Games (Sukma) in August.
The boys' squad is filled with Sarawak Sukma gold medallists including Elvis Priestly Clement, Nur Qayyum Nazmi Nazim, Yong Rui Jie, Lutfir Rahman Razak and Jared Aiden Harold.
Farisya and Lutfir will be making their first appearance at the World Junior Championships, while the rest competed in Canada two years ago.
Malaysia's best result two years ago came from Jared and Elvis who finished fifth in the boy's synchronised 10m platform event.