KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak congratulated national diver, Pandelela Rinong, for winning the bronze medal in the Women's 10m Platform event final of the 2012 London Olympics, hence being the country's first female Olympian to ever win an Olympic medal.

"This morning, I received a good news from the Olympic Games. Our national sportswoman, Pandelela Rinong anak Pamg, has won the bronze medal in the Women's 10m Platform event.

"Well done Pandelela!" Najib said in his latest status update on Facebook today, which had garnered over 18,000 likes as at 2pm.

Najib also said that he believed after winning the medal at such a young age, Pandelela would continue to shine in many more years to come.

Najib also congratulated the 19-year-old diver via Twitter. "Great performance by Pandelela. First Malaysian woman to win an Olympic medal. Well done and congratulation!" he tweeted.

Pandelela collected 359.20 points to settle at third place behind defending champion Chen Ruolin from China (422.30 points) and silver medallist Brittany Broben from Australia (366.50 points).

This is the second medal for Malaysia from the London edition of the Olympics after the national badminton ace Datuk Lee Chong Wei won the silver medal in the men singles' final last Sunday.

With Pandelela's success, Malaysia had also repeated its performance at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta in the United States, by bagging one silver and one bronze medal.

Pandelela's excellent performance also broke badminton domination in medal contribution, which numbered 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 just a demonstration sport then, and the medal was not counted in the official Olympic medal tally.