Jennifer Abel ties Canadian diving record with mixed synchro bronze
Podium finish with François Imbeau-Dulac draws her even with Alexandre Despatie
Canada's Jennifer Abel and Francois Imbeau-Dulac won a bronze medal in the mixed synchro three-metre event on Saturday, the final day of pool diving at the FINA world championships.
The pair medalled in every event they entered this season, including three silvers and a bronze from the elite Diving World Series, yet even after earning her third medal of FINA Worlds, Abel wanted more.
"We are really happy to be on the podium," said the 25-year-old Abel. "But we also are not quite pleased with the colour of the medal."
The two Canadians combined for a score of 297.72 points, below their season-best (at a Diving World Series) of 326.16 points from Guangzhou, China in March.
China's Han Wang and Zheng Li won the event with 323.70 points. Britain's Grace Reid and Tom Daley took the silver medal with 308.04 points.
It's been a long competition for the divers, spanning nine days. Saturday's event was one more chance for Abel and Imbeau-Dulac to dig deep and perform,
Abel, a native of Laval, Que. captured a bronze medal in her individual springboard event on Friday night. Earlier in the competition she won a silver medal with Melissa Citrini-Beaulieu in the women's synchro three-metre.
Equals Despatie
Abel now has eight world championship medals, the most for a Canadian woman in the sport of diving. It also matches retired Olympian, Alexandre Despatie, who also has eight medals, on the men's side.
"She must be very proud," said Imbeau-Dulac, who is from St. Lazare, Que. "I am so, so proud of her, and how the competition went for us."
Also Saturday, Daley captured his first individual medal at the world championships since 2009 with a thrilling victory over reigning Olympic champion Chen Aisen.
Chen, diving just ahead of Daley, put the pressure on in the final round with a brilliant reverse 2 1/2 somersaults with 2 1/2 twists, barely making a ripple as he sliced through the water to receive four perfect 10s from the judges and nothing lower than a 9.5.
But Daley, facing away from the pool, launched himself off the tower for an equally dazzling back 3 1/2 somersault pike. He released his legs, spotted the water and manoeuvred his body into a perpendicular position for scores that matched Chen, including four 10s.
"Seeing Chen do his dive — I saw him in the water and thought, 'Oh yeah, so that's how you want to play. I'm here to play too,"' Daley said.
The winner led after all six rounds and finished with 590.95 points. Chen was next at 585.25, while his teammate Yang Jian settled for the bronze at 565.15.
Daley was one of the platform favourites at the Rio Olympics and led after the preliminaries. But he stunningly failed to advance to the final when he finished last out of 18 divers in the semifinals, with a score that was nearly 170 points worse that the prelims.
'We all did our best'
Chen threw down a towel in disgust when he realized Daley had pulled out the victory.
"When I saw my points after my last dive, I thought, 'I did it, I've got first place, I'm the world champion,"' Chen said. "And then when Tom got exactly the same points as me, I thought, 'Well, it's a bit disappointing, but we all did our best.' What I have to do now is improve myself even more and maybe get first place next time."
China again dominated the diving competition, finishing with 15 medals overall — three times as many as runner-up Russia — but came up short of its 10 gold medals in Kazan two years ago.