February 28, 2010  

ROSTOCK, Germany – Roseline Filion of Laval, Que., and Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal made an impressive season debut on Sunday winning the bronze medal on women’s 10-metre synchro to conclude the opening stop on the FINA Grand Prix diving circuit.

Yadan Hu and Sinuo Ma of China earned the gold medal with 371.94 points, Christin Steuer and Nora Subschinski of Germany were second at 310.98 and Filion and Benfeito followed at 307.65.  Last season the Canadian pair was fourth at the world championships, won three medals on the World Series circuit and two Grand Prix medals including the victory here in 2009.

“We had a great practice session prior to the final and that gave us a lot of confidence,” said Filion.  “We made some errors in the final which cost us a placing but overall it was very good especially our synchronization.  We’ve made some changes to our list this year and this was a very positive way to start the season.”

Canada also nearly reached the podium in the women’s three-metre synchro event as Benfeito and Jennifer Abel of Laval took fourth spot missing the bronze by nine points.  Han Wang and Lin Qu of China won the gold, Sharleen Stratton and Briony Cole of Australia were second and world championship silver medallists Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dellape of Italy third.

Benfeito is subbing for Abel’s regular three-metre partner Melanie Rinaldi of Montreal who is injured.  Rinaldi and Abel were fourth at last year’s worlds.

“Our synchronization and diving was very good considering the small amount of time we have trained together,” said Benfeito.  “We are very pleased with our showing.”

In the men’s 10-metre tower final, Liang Huo of China was the winner with Peter Wakefield of Britain second and Aisen Chen of China third.  Eric Sehn of Edmonton was eliminated in the preliminaries placing 14^th.

The next Grand Prix stop is this Wednesday to Saturday in Moscow.

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