China’s Wu Minxia Claims 8th Diving World Title at 2015 FINA World Championships

2664003 25.07.2015 Джессика Фернандес Родригес и Мария Луиза Хименес Арагонде (Пуэрто-Рико) в предварительном раунде соревнований по синхронным прыжкам в воду с вышки 3 м среди женщин на XVI чемпионате мира по водным видам спорта в Казани. Алексей Мальгавко/РИА Новости
Photo Courtesy: Alex Malgavk/FINA Kazan2015

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The Aquatics Palace hosted the women’s synchronised 3m springboard final where four-time Olympic champion Wu Minxia and double world champion Shi Tingmao won their second straight world title with 351.30 points.

At the previous World Championships in Barcelona, the Chinese duet Wu Minxia and Shi Tingmao finished way ahead of their opponents edging out the Italian favourite Tania Cagnotto (ITA) with 30 points and leaving Canadian athlete, Jennifer Abel, far behind. By the way, together with Pamela Ware, the latter finished second at the leg of the FINA Diving World Series in Kazan, being beaten again by the same Chinese duet but pushing Russia’s Nadezhda Bazhina and Kristina Ilinykh into the bronze-medal place.

Before the event, Tania Cagnotto of Italy considered athletes from China, Australia, Canada and Russia to be her main opponents. Another serious challenge was expected to come from US diver Abigail Johnston, the London 2012 Olympic silver medallist. All in all, it looked like a promising event.

The very first dive was pretty much decisive; after scoring 55.20 the Chinese athletes took the lead at once.

Meanwhile, the Australian and Italian divers were hard on their heels. The Malaysian athletes eventually placed 12th.

In the third dive, the Italian divers faced some problems with synchronicity, which was pretty risky at the moment as by that time they were only one point ahead of the Canadian duet. As for the Australian representatives, they were quite determined in getting silver.

After three dives the Chinese and Australian divers reinforced their positions in the medal standings whereas the Canadian athletes and the host duet moved up to the third and fourth positions respectively. After the fourth dive the first three leaders were as follows: China, Canada and Russia. However, by the end of the event the Australian duet managed to summon up and finally take bronze. As for the Russian duet, they placed sixth, finishing after Ukraine (4th place) and Italy (5th place).

QUOTES – Mixed 10m platform

Melissa Wu (AUS): “I’m really very happy with what we have done today. We had fun and we are very happy with our bronze medal”.

Domonic Bedggood (AUS): “This is our second chance competing together, so we are very happy with our bronze medal. We definitively believe that mixed synchro will be an event to remain in the programme for the future, so we are really excited with this result”.

Meaghan Benfeito (CAN): “We are very happy with our silver medal. We really are doing our best in this season.”

Vincent Riendeau (CAN): “We had a great start in the competition but had some individual troubles on the fourth dive. That hurt us in the standings so it was great to come back to a satisfying finish. Now we have something built on for the future. We have trouble in some dives, but this result motivates us to do better in the future.”

QUOTES – Women’s 3m Synchro Springboard

Esther Qin (AUS): “I think it was very nice. We had some mistakes and I think we were very lucky today. Miss dives, it can happen sometimes and we are satisfied with our result and with our medal.”

Jennifer Abel (CAN): “We are very happy with our performance today. Pamela and I did a good job to qualify the country for the Rio Olympic Games next year!”.

Pamela Ware (CAN): “The goal here was to get on the podium and get the Olympic spot for Canada. We did our first two compulsory dives better than ever and that really set the tone for the rest of the competition. Two years ago, it was our first season together so it is really great to see how we’ve improved.”

The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World. To reach our audience, contact us at newsmaster@swimmingworld.com.

2015 FINA World Championships, Diving: Day 2 Results – Results

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