June 25 , 2010

Celina Toth

BOLZANO, Italy – Celina Toth of St. Thomas, Ont., surprised herself in her FINA Grand Prix diving debut on Friday placing sixth on women's 10-metre tower.

Linghui Feng of China won the gold medal with 347.75 points, Valentina Marocchi of Italy was second at 319.80 and Natalia Goncharova of Russia third at 311.10. Two-time world champion Xin Wang of China missed her fourth dive and placed fourth at 310.85.

Toth, who trains at the Forest City Diving Club in London, Ont., earned 263.65 points to complete a busy day of diving. She ranked fourth in the morning preliminaries and was third in her semifinal heat to advance to the six-woman final.

''The goal was to make finals, but still I wasn't sure if I would make it at my first Grand Prix,'' said Toth, 18, a former world junior team member. ''My highlight was my front three and half. I've been having trouble with it in practice this week and when I landed it well in the preliminaries that gave me a lot of confidence.''

Toth admits she battles nervousness at times during the meet.

''The preliminaries I was actually quite calm and just went out there to have fun,'' she said. ''But for the semis, I was very jittery and that affected my score a bit. In the final, I tried to get that feeling back I had for the prelims, and I was much better.''

Another challenge for Toth was competing outdoors on tower for the first time in her career.

''That was only the second time in my career overall that I`ve competed outdoors,'' she said. ''And the last time was a couple of years ago. The wind was pretty unpredictable but I managed to pull through.''

Lauren Penko of Winnipeg reached the semifinals and placed 12th overall.

Toth and Penko were the only two Canadian entries here. The Summer Nationals and Commonwealth Games Trials are currently taking place in Saskatoon.

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