Updated 11 August 2012: Congratulations to Pandelela Rinong, for being the first Malaysian woman to win an Olympic medal for the country in the London 2012 Games. She won the diving bronze in the 10m platform event. Pandelela’s performance broke badminton’s domination in medal contributions — two silver and two bronze medals so far — since Malaysia’s first participation in the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956. At the Seoul Olympics in 1988, national female taekwondo athlete, M. Vasugi, also received a bronze medal, but taekwondo was a demonstration sport then, and the medal was not counted in the official Olympic medal tally.

Now that it’s time for the August issue to be released, I can *finally* post up my latest article in July 2012’s Malaysian Women’s Weekly: an interview with the three hottest sports darlings in Malaysia – national diver Pandelela Rinong; badminton star Yang Li Lian; and top swimmer Khoo Cai Lin.

Once you get past their shyness, you can extract real gems from the girls. Not to mention they scrub up real well too. I did a double take when I saw petite Pandelela looking positively Amazon-like!

It’s a pity I couldn’t use everything they said during the interview, like this gem of a quote from Pandelela: “Diving is a sport that is both powerful and graceful; you need to be brave to jump from a 10m platform.”

I also loved Li Lian’s anecdote about how her coach would run with the players under the hot sun during training, instead of just standing in the shade. And of course which woman (and mother) would be unmoved by Cai Lin’s touching tale of maternal love … speaking of which, I felt oddly maternal while conducting the interviews. Must be my biological clock going into overdrive haha!

Loved doing the interviews and good luck in your future endeavours, girls!