Passmore lands in semi-finals
JAKE PASSMORE is through to the semifinal of the 3-metre Springboard at the World Aquatics Championships, after an outstanding final dive secured him 17th place overall in yesterday’s preliminary round.
The 18-year-old Irish diver, who was 45th at the 2023 edition of the Championships just six months ago, saved his best dive for last, scoring an outstanding 78.20 points from his most difficult dive.
A delighted Passmore commented: ‘I’m a bit lost for words, it wasn’t necessarily a goal (the semis), I just wanted to do six dives as good as I can and the result of that is better than I thought it would be.’
On his last dive Passmore added: ‘I was so nervous, same for every dive, but that felt like there was a massive weight on my shoulders and as soon as my hands hit the water, I knew that it was good, I just wasn’t sure how good it was and if it was enough but it turned out it was.’
Going into the final round, Passmore was in 23rd place, and 15 points behind 18th place, but the Leeds native impressively held his nerve to move six places up the rankings for a total score of 374.15.
Seventy divers contested the preliminary round, with 50 minutes between each dive and the event taking over five hours to complete. Passmore also had a long wait to find out if he had made the semi-final, with 31 divers still to come once he had completed his set.
On the wait Passmore said: ‘I ended up going up to sit with my parents, it was excruciating trying to figure out where I’d placed, for around 15 divers, it looked like I was around 18th or 19th, so it worked out, but it was very stressful.’
Passmore will compete in today’s semi-final at 7am Irish time, where a final place (top 12) will ensure a place at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.