February 27, 2010  

ROSTOCK, Germany – Mandy Moran of Calgary produced Canada’s best result so far at the season-opening FINA Grand Prix diving competition on Saturday placing fifth in the women’s three-metre springboard event.

Sharleen Stratton of Australia won the gold medal tabulating 363.85 points with Lin Qu of China second at 339.75 and her compatriot Han Wang third at 335.10.  Moran was in sixth for most of the final but gained a spot on her fifth and final dive finishing at 302.50. 

“I had a good competition,” said Moran, 28, a two-time Grand Prix medallist last season.  “Everything could have been a little bit sharper but I had really good take-offs of the board today.  Where I lost points was on the entries. I attempted a new dive for the first time in international competition as well and it went really well.  It’s good for the confidence to know I can go in there with a stronger list.”

Moran started the day placing sixth in the preliminaries and was second in her semifinal heat.

Jennifer Abel of Laval, Que., was eliminated in the semifinals for ninth overall.  Abel is also breaking in a new dive, a back twisting dive considered one of the toughest in the books.

“I still need to improve the dive and I’m pleased at this point to have reached the semifinal,” said Abel, 18 an Olympic and world team member in 2008 and 2009 respectively.  “I was pretty nervous attempting it for the first time internationally but I managed to improve some of the technical aspects we had been working on practice.”

On men’s 10-metre tower, Eric Sehn of Edmonton was 14^th in the preliminaries and did not advance.

Competition ends Sunday.

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