Canadian divers look to make a splash
Revamped team has many new faces
There will be some familiar faces missing on Canada’s diving team as the FINA world aquatic championships gets underway in Barcelona this weekend.
With the high-profile retirements this year of Olympians Émilie Heymans and Alexandre Despatie, Canada is trying to fill the gaps left by two of the country’s all-time diving greats.
Diving Canada’s chief technical officer, Mitch Geller, acknowledges the void left by those two stalwarts, but says there’s plenty of optimism surrounding the youthful squad Canada is fielding at this year’s worlds.
“Alex and Émilie were fixtures on our team,” Geller said. “Émilie was doing the three-metre synchro with Jennifer (Abel) and now we have new partnership with Pamela Ware and Jennifer and they are very strong syn- chro team. We do feel we have medal chances.
“Barring any major mistakes, they should be right in the hunt.”
Abel, from Laval, won a bronze with Heymans at last summer’s London Games and has since won nationals in both three-metre individual and synchro. She’s also finished second at two FINA World Series diving stops this season.
Geller believes her new partnership with Ware is actually a better fit in some respects and that the duo are expected to contend all the way to the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“We’re excited about the pairing that we have because their two styles are more similar than were Jennifer and Émilie,” he says. “The thing about Émilie was … she was a great competitor, but stylistically quite different than Jennifer. But with Pamela, it’s a little bit more of a natural fit. In terms of 2016 medal potential, we think the chances are quite high for them.”
Ware and Abel are also expected to contend in the individual three-metre, and Geller says Ware is “really looking impressive” in the women’s individual one-metre.
He also believes there’s a chance for a medal in the women’s 10-metre synchro with Montreal’s Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion of Laval looking to build on their bronze in London.
Ware’s sister, Carol-Ann Ware, of Beloeil, will compete in the 10-metre individual and Laval’s Stephanie De Lima will enter the 20-metre high dive competition.
Although Geller is confident the Canadian diving team has bridged the gap left by Heymans’s departure, the men’s side is a different story.
There will be only two men out of the eight Canadian divers in Barcelona and neither are realistically expected to find the podium.
François Imbeau-Dulac of St-Lazare, and Victoria’s Riley McCormick will each compete in the one-metre and three-metre individual.
Geller is hoping ImbeauDulac can finish top-eight to secure a spot in next season’s World Series of diving, but McCormick, who had surgery on his left thumb in December, is mostly out to gain experience from international competition.
The Canadian synchro swimming team, which also gets started this weekend, will have a new look for its duets contingent.
Chloé Isaac of Brossard and Karine Thomas of Gatineau are pairing in the technical duet, while Emilia Kopcik of Surrey, B.C., and Stéphanie Leclair of Gatineau will compete in the free duet.
“Our analysis over the past months has led us to try new duets for the FINA World Aquatic Championships,” said Canada’s synchro swimming head coach Meng Chen in a statement.
“Unfortunately our current duet has not progressed as planned which is an opinion shared by many technical experts.
“It wasn’t an easy decision but it was decided in the best long term interest of the athletes and Canadian synchronized swimming.”