Canada wins five more medals at junior Pan am diving championships

September 12th, 2009

Pamela & Carol-Ann Ware

CALGARY– Montreal sisters Carol-Ann Ware and Pamela Ware won gold and silver respectively on women’s 10-metre tower on Saturday to highlight a five-medal day for Canada at the junior Pan Am diving championships.

On women’s tower in the 16-18 category, Carol-Ann Ware earned three perfect 10’s on her third dive, a reverse two and a half, en route to the gold with a personal best 493.10 points. Pamela Ware collected her third silver of the competition with 416.70. Michelle Cabassol of the U.S., was third at 395.50.

‘’That was the best performance of my life and a great way to end my junior career on tower,’’ said Carol-Ann Ware, 18, who earned Canada’s first gold of the competition. ‘’It was great to go out there and compete to the best of my abilities. Pamela and I dove one after the other and we really pushed each other to do well.’’

Pamela Ware, 16, was also pleased with her performance especially that she hurt her knee this week.

‘’I didn’t put high expectations on myself for tonight’s final,’’ she said. ‘’ But I wound up with a very solid performance and didn’t miss anything.’’

On men’s three-metre synchro, Daniel Islas and Jonathan Ruvalcaba of Mexico were the winners with 321.75 points. Shane Miszkiel of Victoria and Cody Yano of Edmonton took the silver at 321.75 in their competitive debut as a synchro pair.

“We’re surprised to get the medal,’’ said Miszkiel. ‘’The key for us was being confident in our abilities and each other abilities. On the last dive the adrenaline was really rushing because we knew that if we could nail that dive we would be in the medals.’’

In the girls 12-13 three-metre, Sarah Bacon of the U.S., took the gold with 305.65 points, Michelle Piper-Kulak of Edmonton was second at 294.65 and Wallace Layland of the U.S., third at 290.00. Frederique Lalonde of Repentigny, Que., was fourth at 278.80.

On women’s three-metre in the 14-15 age group, Kassidy Cook of the U.S., won the gold medal with 394.45 points. Karla Rivas Gonzalez of Mexico was second at 384.15 and Myriam Selmani of Laval, Que., followed at 356.50. Eloise Bélanger of Montreal was fifth.

Selmani was in fourth place heading into the last round of dives but scored well on her reverse dive to climb onto the podium.

“It was a good performance and a good score, just some errors,” said Selmani, also third on one-metre on Friday. “My reverse dive hasn’t been consistent this year but I knew the key for me was a good take-off.”

Other Canadian results: Vincent Riendeau Pointe-Claire, Que., and Laurent Papineau of Montreal were fourth and eighth respectively in the boys 12-13 three-metre; Emily Schmidt of Red Deer, Alta., and Dominique Cadieux of Edmonton were fifth and sixth in the girls 11 and under one-metre; Peter Thach Mai of Montreal and Aidan Faminoff of Victoria were fifth and seventh in the boys 11 and under platform.

The U.S., leads the medal count with nine gold, four silver and 10 bronze followed by Mexico at 7-5-1, Colombia at 2-3-5 and Canada at 1-7-3.

Competition ends Sunday.

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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