February 26, 2010 

ROSTOCK, Germany – Roseline Filion of Laval, Que., missed a berth in the final by less than half a point on Friday in the women’s 10-metre tower to highlight Canadian performances at the season-opening stop on FINA Grand Prix diving circuit.

In the final, Yadan Hu led China to a 1-2 finish with 394.00 points.  Sinou Ma was second at 378.95 and Olympic silver medallist Melissa Wu of Australia third at 357.00

In morning preliminaries, Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal, fourth at last year’s world championships, and Filion easily advanced to the semifinals ranking second and fifth respectively.

In the semis, Filion struggled on her third dive, a forward three and half, which ultimately cost her a spot in the final and ranked her seventh.  The top-three from each semi advanced.

‘’I’ve struggled with my forward dive in training this year,’’ said Filion, 10^th in the event at last year’s worlds.  ‘’It’s coming along but there is still a lot of work to do. But overall I’m not too disappointed.  I was very solid on my four other dives and it is the first Grand Prix of the year.’’

In the other semi, Benfeito delivered an inconsistent performance in her semifinal draw and was sixth missing a spot in the final by 2.5 points for an 11th place ranking overall.

‘’I hit three of my five dives in the semis but the two I missed, I really missed them,’’ said Benfeito, 20.  ‘’They are dives that I can usually do very well.  Consistency is something I need to work on as well my entries.

On men’s three-metre, Sasha Kelin of Germany won the gold medal with 490.80 points, Evgeny Kuznetsov of Russia was second at 476.35 and Kai Qin of China third at 462.10.

François Imbeau-Dulac of St-Lazare, Que., and Eric Sehn of Edmonton were sixth in their respective semis and ranked 10^th and 12^th overall respectively.

‘’This was a good result for me,’’ said Imbeau-Dulac, 19, making his first career appearance at the event.  ‘’The big challenge for me right now is my opening dive.  I need to score better on it and get a boost of confidence for the rest of the competition.’’

Sehn, 25, hit his toes on the board on his fifth dive in the semis, an inward two and a half, which sunk all hope of advancing.  He was sixth in the preliminaries.

‘’I showed I can compete against these guys in the prelims but everything went against me in the semis,’’ said Sehn, who wasn’t injured on the diving mishap.  ‘’I made some bad mistakes and it just helps me realize how much training I still need to do.’’

Competition continues through to Sunday.

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