July 24th, 2011

Riley McCormick

SHANGHAI – Riley McCormick of Victoria matched his result from two years ago in Rome placing ninth on men's 10-metre tower on Sunday to conclude the diving competition at the FINA World Aquatic Championships.

Canadian divers collected two medals over the eight days. Jennifer Abel of Laval and Emilie Heymans of St-Lambert took silver on three-metre synchro and Abel added a bronze in individual three-metre. In addition Canadian divers locked up eight Olympic spots for next year's Games.

On Sunday, Bo Qiu made it a golden sweep for China in the diving competition collecting 585.45 points. David Boudia of the U.S., was second at 544.25 and Sasha Klein of Germany third at 534.50.

McCormick, who earned one of those Olympic spots by making the final, totalled 444.50 with a consistent performance. Only his third dive had slightly lower marks than the others which all included at least one 8.0.

In the final, McCormick was bothered by an arm injury suffered on Saturday.

''I feel pretty good overall about the performance especially with the Olympic spot,'' said McCormick, 19, already competing at his fourth worlds. ''It's always nice to get that out of the way early. Obviously I would have liked to have finish a bit higher than in Rome.''

McCormick has been bothered by injuries all season and his looking forward to a more stable setting leading up to the Olympics.

''I really didn't expect to come back from the injuries and school commitments and place this well here,'' said McCormick. ''I'll be based back in Victoria over the next year and that is really going to help me a lot.''

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