Golden day for Canadians Benfeito and Ross at Canada Cup Grand Prix

May 2nd, 2009

Meaghan Benfeito

MONTREAL - Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal and Reuben Ross of Regina each won gold Saturday to highlight a quadruple-medal performance for Canadian divers at the 13-country Canada Cup. The meet is also the fourth stop on the FINA Grand Prix circuit.

On women’s 10-metre tower, Benfeito nailed her fifth and final dive to snare the gold with 342.90 points. It was her first career international medal. Roseline Filion of Laval, Que., was edged for the silver and finished with 342.50. Michelle Cabassol of the U.S., was third at 328.85.

Benfeito was the last diver and needed to average 8.5’s to get the gold. She did exactly that with a superb twisting dive worth 83.30 points. Filion executed the same dive just before Filion and posted a 76.50 score.

‘’I was pretty stressed before that last dive,’’ said Benfeito, 20. ‘’It is a dive I usually do very well but I can tell you I gave everything I had on it. It took all of my energy to do it that well. The focus for me here was not on winning a medal. I just wanted to deliver a strong performance with strong scores. To get the gold will certainly make this memorable.’’

Filion, a silver medallist at the Grand Prix in Germany earlier this season, was also pleased with her performance.

‘’Anytime I can earn 340 points or more, that’s very strong,’’ said Filion, 21. ‘’It really showed today that I had a lot more confidence in my diving compared to the last couple of meets. There are still elements I need to improve but I’m where I want to be at this point in the season.’’

Filion and Benfeito are also Canada’s top 10-metre sychro pair and are among the medal favourites for Sunday’s final.

On men’s three-metre springboard, Ross posted a personal best 452.90 points for his first international victory in his first international final. Cesar Castro of Brazil was second 443.80 and Victor Toranzo of Cuba third at 423.35. Ross posted at least 7.5’s on all six of his dives and earned 8.0 and 9.0’s for his inward dive in the fifth round.

“It feels awesome,” said Ross, 23, a member of last year’s Olympic team. “It’s really exciting to get the win especially in my home country. I knew I had a shot for a medal coming into the competition but I just tried to keep focused on the diving.”

In the women’s three-metre synchro final, Sharleen Stratton and Briony Cole of Australia won the gold with 317.04 points. Jennifer Abel and Melanie Rinaldi, both of Montreal, took the silver at 302.40 in their competitive debut as a pair. Abel and Rinaldi had only been training for two weeks together totalling six practice sessions.

“This was a very strong start for us and we plan to stay together for the rest of the season,” said Rinaldi. “We saw our last practices on video and we knew that if we could repeat that, we’d do well here. The biggest challenge for us was learning the dive list and timing the synchronization.”

Mandy Moran and Hailey Casper, both of Calgary, were third at 282.96. However there is a limit of one medal per country in the synchro events and fourth place finishers Svetlana Fillipova and Olga Pashkina of Russia were awarded the bronze.

Competition ends Sunday at the Olympic Park Sports Centre with four more finals starting at 12:45 p.m.

Full information, including results and schedule available at http://canadacup.diving.ca/?lang=EN

About the FINA Grand Prix
Held since 1995, the FINA Grand Prix is similar in format to the World Cups in alpine skiing and speed skating. This season there are five stops, including the Canada Cup from April 30-May 3 in Montreal, Quebec. The Canada Cup is held in large part due to the support of The Government of Quebec and Sport Canada.

About Diving Plongeon Canada
Diving Plongeon Canada (DPC) was established in 1967 as a not-for-profit organization to promote the growth and awareness of the sport in this country. As a member of FINA, the world’s governing body of aquatic sports, DPC contributes to the development of globally accepted standards of excellence in diving and supports the rules and regulations of international competition. Representing nine provincial diving associations, 67 local diving clubs and close to 4,000 high performance athletes, DPC shares a national commitment to advance the art and sport of diving and to position Canada as the number one diving nation of the world.  For information, visit www.diving.ca.

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