KUALA LUMPUR: China’s Li Rui is the latest appointed as diving coach to help the Malaysian elite squad achieve victory at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia (Asum) honorary secretary, Mae Chen said the 41-year-old coach who had trained several big names like former world champion, Si Yajie, and Olympics gold medallist, Qin Kai, would begin his duty after the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration.
“We have identified a new coach and we are now working on his visa. Hopefully, he would be able to come here after the Chinese New Year. He used to work for one of the diving clubs in Canada and was working under one very experienced Chinese coach.
“He had actually trained divers like Si Yajie and Qin Kai when they were young and our previous coach, Zhao Wei was also one of his athletes,” she said when met after a working committee meeting with the National Sports Council (NSC), here, yesterday.
Rui will be joining two other coaches, Christian Brooker and Li Teng, who are currently with the national squad.
Chen said Rui’s wide experience would add a positive to the squad and hoped the three coaches could team up in helping the national divers to have a good run ahead of the Olympics qualifying campaign which would start with the World Championships in South Korea this July.
“We feel that all the coaches have their own strengths….we hope the three of them will put their strengths together so that all our divers will benefit,” she added.
For the record, Rui’s appointment is due to the departure of China’s Zhang Yukun who decided to return to his native country last December to take up a new coaching offer. – Bernama
