Canada’s Roseline Filion wins silver medal at diving Grand Prix

February 27th, 2009

Roseline Filion

ROSTOCK, Germany – Roseline Filion of Laval, Que., won the silver medal on women’s 10-metre tower on Friday to open the second stop on the FINA Grand Prix diving circuit.

Yulia Koltunova of Russia won the gold medal with 331.00 points, Filion followed at 320.70 and Ni Chen of China was third at 316.40. Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal was eliminated in the semifinals and places seventh overall.

It was Filion's career-best Grand Prix result on individual tower. She had finished third three times. On Friday she was second in the preliminaries and won her semifinal heat with the third best score overall.

Afterwards she said she was pleased to open her international season with such a strong result. With all three rounds on the same day she mentioned it was a challenge to maintain one’s concentration through such a long event.

In the final, Filion said she would have liked to have back her final twisting dive on which she averaged 5.5’s out of a possible 10 from the judges.

Benfeito was fifth in the prelims and took fourth spot in her semifinal. The top-three from each of the two semis advance to the final. Benfeito said she could have been sharper on her entries.

On men’s three-metre, Shixin Li of China took the gold at 486.15, Pavlo Rozenberg of Germany was second at 482.55 and Ken Nee Yeoh of Malaysia was third at 452.95. Cory Watson of Edmonton was eliminated in the semifinals and placed 11 th.

“There’s nothing that particularly stood out but there were no major errors either,” said Watson, 21 competing at his fourth career Grand Prix and only his second overseas. “I decided to use last year’s list and I felt comfortable competing. I’m working on three new dives in practice that I hope will be ready for the summer nationals.”

Alexandre Despatie of Laval, Que., was scheduled to compete but withdrew due to a sore back.

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.

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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