It’s been a decade of fun and Games
Filion, Benfeito won medal in their first 10-metre syncrhonized competition
Roseline Filion and Meaghan Benfeito were just teenagers when they were thrown together and marched up the 10-metre platform to dive against some of the best synchronized teams in the world.
“There was an open spot in 10-metre synchro at the time so our coach asked us if we wanted to do it,” recalled Filion. “We said yes, with the mindset of going in and just having fun.”
They smiled and giggled their way up the stairs, shocking the serious diving world, and they did have fun. But they also won a bronze medal.
When they repeated that feat two months later at the world championships, against all the best teams, that shocked the diving world even more.
It’s not surprising, with such early success, that the diving duo have happily stayed together. Filion, 27, and Benfeito, 26, are celebrating their 10-year athletic partnership this week at the Canada Cup grand prix in Quebec, where it all started.
They still smile and laugh on the platform but no one in the diving world would dismiss them as silly girls anymore. They have buckets of individual and synchro diving medals, including a bronze from the 2012 London Olympics and, just last month, they came within a tuck of finally beating the top Chinese team.
They held the lead over Olympic gold medallist Ruolin Chen and world champion Huixia Liu for the first three dives in the Dubai world series event. But, on the fourth dive in the five-dive competition, Filion missed grabbing her tuck properly and was short of vertical entering the water.
The splash evaporated their lead and, ultimately, they finished with a silver medal, just three points back of the Chinese team.
“To know that we could (medal) really motivated us for the rest of our careers.” MEAGHAN BENFEITO OLYMPIC DIVER
“It’s a little painful,” said Filion, noting that their fourth dive, a back three and a half somersault in the tuck position, is a hard dive but one that they usually do really well.
“We were so close to beating them. That means we’re doing something right and we just have to keep doing it,” she said.
The dive that gave Filion trouble in Dubai is actually the one that Benfeito recalls as her “enemy dive” when she was younger and not too keen to be diving off the10-metre platform at all.
It’s a blind dive and she struggled to see the water. She often missed the landing, and would flop on her stomach or, sometimes, her back. It’s a scary thing to jump off a 10-metre tower without knowing how you’ll land.
She credits competing in synchro with Filion for focusing her fears and conquering her enemy dive.
“If I land on my head, we can be on the podium,” Benfeito told herself.
Now, fear has been replaced by the adrenaline of jumping off the tower and knowing the she won’t hit the water for as long as three seconds.
“It feels like you’re flying but in control.”
Benfeito and Filion along with three-metre springboard divers Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware have been dubbed Canada’s Fab IV. Last season, they won 36 international medals and are expected to be stars at July’s Pan Am Games in Toronto, then medal contenders next summer in Rio.
The Pans Ams fall in the middle of a packed schedule of international diving competitions but the rare opportunity to compete in front of a home crowd is something the divers are looking forward to.
Benfeito still remembers how she felt at their first synchro competition at decade ago. The Canada Cup was held in Montreal then and the April 9-12 event is now in Gatineau.
“The first time we stepped up on the tower and they were screaming for us and we turned to each other and said, ‘They actually know who we are,’” Benfeito said.
“To realize we had actually won a bronze medal was amazing. It was nothing we had expected but at such a young age to know that we could do that really motivated us for the rest of our careers.”
The difference, 10 years on, is that now they expect to win.