Émilie Heymans wins silver medal on three-metre at world aquatic championships

July 21st, 2009

Émilie Heymans

ROME – Three-time Olympic medallist Émilie Heymans of St-Lambert, Que., won silver on women’s three-metre springboard on Tuesday for Canada’s second diving medal at the world aquatic championships.

It is Canada’s first world championship medal on women’s three-metre. Since the first worlds in 1973, the previous best on women’s three-metre for Canada was fifth place for Blythe Hartley of North Vancouver at the 2003 worlds in Barcelona.

Jingjing Guo of China earned her ninth career world title winning the event with 388.20 points. Heymans, ninth in the preliminaries and 10 th in the semifinals, saved her best for last accumulating a 346.45 score. Tania Cagnotto of Italy took the bronze at 341.25.

A tower specialist the last few seasons, Heymans switched to three-metre this year and she wasn’t sure how she would stack up against the world’s best at this point.

‘’When I arrived here I wasn’t expecting to be on the podium,’’ said Heymans, 27. ‘’It was hard to know where I stood internationally and I wasn’t sure what kind of scores I would get for my dives. But after the prelims and semis I felt a medal was possible. I knew I could do my dives a lot better and the competition was very close.’’

The key dive for Heymans was her reverse three and half in the third round on which she earned 8.5’s from all seven judges.

‘’It’s a dive that I can do very well,’’ she said. ‘’It is a very difficult dive and I always feel a lot of stress when I do it. Next year, I want to increase the degree of difficulty for my first two dives and that’s going to be a big challenge.’’

Jennifer Abel of Laval, Que., second after the semis, struggled on her opening two dives and finished in 11 th place.

‘’I’ll look back on this as another valuable experience in my career,’’ said Abel, 17. ‘’There were a lot of positive moments for me. I had a great semifinal and got a personal best. After a tough start in the final I finished with three strong dives. I’m very satisfied.’’

On men’s tower, 15-year-old Thomas Daley of Britain showed last year’s European title was no fluke as he scored three perfect 10’s on each of his last two dives to win the gold medal with 539.85 points. Bo Qiu of China was second at 532.20 and his compatriot Luxin Zhou third at 530.55.

Seventeen-year-old Riley McCormick of Victoria produced a solid performance to place ninth. He received marks as high as 8.5’s on four of his six dives in the final. Only his first dive was tad off as he earned 6.5’s and 7.0’s.

Competition continues Wednesday.

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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