According to Pandelela, the pain surfaced earlier this morning but she decided to shoulder on.

However, after the second dive, she said the impact from the dive worsened her back condition.

“After discussing with our coach, I think it’s better not to let it get worse, so we decided to withdraw from the event,” she told reporters at the National Aquatic Centre here today.

“This is an old back problem. Too bad the pain suddenly returned this morning, but after a few days of rest I think it should be better,” she explained.

For the record, the Olympic medallist had suffered back injury since 2015, forcing her to pull out from several tournaments including the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games in 2018.

Meanwhile, the event with only two participating countries, Malaysia and North Korea, turned into a controversy when ‘no winner’ was declared after the organiser found a technical error involving the duo from North Korea.

Asian Cup technical official Tony Koh Kok Beng explained that one of the North Korean divers who participated in the event this morning was not in the registered list.

“Halfway through, technical officials discovered that one of the divers was not listed to dive,” he said, adding that under the Fina rules that diver would be disqualified.

“There were only two teams participating in this event. Since the North Korean team has been disqualified and the Malaysian team has withdrawn, it means that the event has no winner,” he said, emphasising that the event was not cancelled.

The three-days Asian Cup entered its second day today with 11 participating countries and 13 events.