Despatie and Ross win bronze on three-metre synchro at world aquatic championships

July 18th, 2009

Reuben Ross & Alexandre Despatie

ROME – Alexandre Despatie of Laval, Que., and Reuben Ross of Regina nailed their final two dives and snared the bronze medal in the men’s three-metre synchro diving competition on Saturday at the world aquatic championships.

Olympic champions Kai Qin and Feng Wang of China won the gold medal with 467.94 points and Troy Dumais and Kristia Ipsen of the U.S., were second at 445.59. Despatie and Ross took the bronze in their international debut as a team at 428.64 edging an Italian pair by only 0.09 points.

“We are super happy with our performance,” said Despatie, 24, savouring his seventh career world championship medal. “It was a very tough competition and many teams dove really well. I don’t think we’re surprised with the medal, in fact we though we could have dome some things better in the final. We knew we had the potential to do well here.”

The Canadians, who competed only once before at the summer nationals last month, slipped as low as eighth after Ross struggled with his forward dive in the fourth round. However with their two toughest dives remaining, Despatie and Ross earned big scores on their twisting dive and their inward dive.

“I’m still finding it hard to believe that we’ve won a world championship medal” said Ross, 23 an Olympic team member last year. ‘’The key for us is that we both have confidence in our abilities. I didn’t even pay attention to the scores throughout the competition so I wasn’t aware how close it was. I don’t need more things to think about when I’m diving.’’

On women’s 10-metre tower, Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal delivered the best performance of her career finishing an unexpected fourth with 396.50 points. Veteran Paola Espinosa of Mexico won the gold medal at 428.25 with Ruolin Chen of China second at 417.60 and her compatriot Kang Li third. Roseline Filion of Laval, Que., was 10 th.

Benfeito was 16 th in the preliminaries on Friday and sixth in the morning semifinals.

‘’I just completely forgot about my performance in the preliminaries,’’ said Benfeito, 20. ‘’My semis went well and just told myself to give everything I got in the final. You never know what can happen but I knew the three girls that finished ahead of me would be hard to beat.’’

But she gave it a shot scoring 9.0’s and 9.5’s on her armstand dive and more 9.0’s on her twisting dive to end the competition.

‘’The armstand dive is always a reliable one for me,’’ said Benfeito. ‘’But I had never done it that well before.’’

Filion, the reigning Canadian champion, was hoping to fare better.

‘’I’m a little disappointed,’’ she said. ‘’ I broke the 340 point barrier which was a goal. But I was nervous and I rushed a couple of dives that I can usually do much better.’’

Competition continues Sunday.

On-line: http://www.diving.ca/english/html/events/2009/WC09.htm

About the 13th World Aquatic Championships
The 13th FINA World Aquatic Championships will take place July 17th to August 2nd, 2009 in Rome, Italy.In total, 2556 athletes from 185 countries will be competing in swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming, and open water swimming. This 2009 edition of the championship is the biggest one in history. The previous mark was set in 2007 in Melbourne when 2158 athletes represented 167 countries.

In diving, 200 athletes from 43 nations will face-off in the ten events taking place between July 17th and 25th at Foro Italico in
Rome.A total of 400,000 spectators are expected to attend and watch the ‘best of the best’ in world aquatics.

The FINA World Championships began in Belgrade (YUG) in 1973 and had the participation of 696 athletes from 47 countries.

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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