Silver for Canadians Benfeito and Filion at World Series diving

April 17, 2010

www.diving.ca

VERACRUZ, Mexico – Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal and Roseline Filion of Laval, Que., won the silver medal in the women’s 10-metre synchro event on Saturday to conclude the second stop on the FINA World Series diving circuit.

 It was Canada’s third medal of the competition.  On Friday, Alexandre Despatie of Laval, Que., took the gold on men’s three-metre and Emilie Heymans of St-Lambert, Que., and Jennifer Abel of Laval took silver on women’s three-metre synchro.

In Saturday’s women’s 10-metre synchro, Ruolin Chen and Hao Weng of China were the winners for the second straight event earning 345.96 points.  Benfeito and Filion bettered their placement by one spot from the season opener in China last month tabulating 336.39, their best score since the 2008 Olympic trials.  Melissa Wu and Alexandra Croak of Australia were third at 319.68.

‘’We are very pleased,’’ said Filion.  ‘’Our entries were solid, our individual dives and synchronization were spot on and we scored strong on every dive.  We saw a big improvement at the first meet in China and today it got even better.  Our hard training is really paying off.’’

Canada earned fourth place finishes in the other two finals on Saturday.

On women’s three-metre, world champion He Zi of China took the gold with Paola Espinosa of Mexico second and Kelci Bryant of the U.S., third.  Heymans was fourth and Abel sixth.

Heymans is battling a hip injury which is affecting her take-offs.

‘’I’ve had the injury for a couple of months and it’s hampered my training so I’m not progressing as fast as I would like this season,’’ said Heymans, a three-time Olympic medallist.  ‘’The injury reduces the power I try to generate on my take-off in particular.  Still I’m pleased with today, I was consistent.’’

Abel made mistakes on her opening two dives in the final and couldn’t make up lost ground.

‘’There are still a lot of positive points for me from today’s competition,’’ Abel said.  ‘’There are two dives that I have been struggling with lately and I did them well today.  That helped me get more than 300 points which is very good.’’

On men’s three-metre synchro, Qin Kai and Zhang Xinhua of China were the victors while Despatie and his new partner Reuben Ross of Regina were fourth missing a berth on the podium by only four points.  The Canadians, in their third competition this season, were in the lead entering the sixth and final round of diving

‘’We made an error on our last dive and that cost us,’’ said Despatie, ‘’We haven’t had an opportunity to train that often this year so we are encouraged we came here and were very competitive.  The key for us will be to train more together.  We definitely have a lot of potential.’’

Ross will move to Montreal to train with Despatie in September and remain there up until the 2012 Olympics.

The third and final stop on the World Series circuit is next week in Sheffield, England.

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