Montreal’s Benfeito, partner McKay earn silver at Commonwealth Games
GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA After a rocky start to the Commonwealth Games diving competition Wednesday, Canada stepped up to the medal podium.
Flag-bearer Meaghan Benfeito and teenage partner Caeli McKay steadied the ship with a silver medal in the women’s 10-metre synchronized event after a botched dive dropped Jennifer Abel and Melissa Citrini-Beaulieu out of medal contention in the threemetre synchro final.
“We had a really shaky start as you might have noticed,” said Mitch Geller, Diving Canada’s chief technical officer. “That was a real hard one and a bit of a shock for all of us.”
Abel and Citrini-Beaulieu had won silver in the same event at the 2017 FINA World Championships last summer in Budapest. And they led after three dives Wednesday.
But it fell apart on the fourth when Abel lost position on a forward 3½ somersault dive from the pike position, the duo’s most difficult dive of the day. The 26-yearold from Laval all but jackknifed into the pool with her hands just beating her feet to the water.
“A big technical mistake,” said Abel, who won the event in 2010 and took silver in 2014, albeit with a different partner.
Rubbing salt into the wound, technical delays meant the duo had to sit poolside for what seemed like an eternity before they got a set of most unwelcome marks.
Australia’s Esther Qin and Georgia Sheehan rode a terrific final dive to grab gold with 284.10 points, ahead of England’s Alicia Blagg and Katherine Torrance (276.90) and Malaysia’s Mun Yee Leong and Nur Dhabitah Sabri (264.90).
The Canadian pair finished with 246.78 points.
Benfeito, a 29-year-old from Montreal, and McKay, an 18-yearold from Calgary, had no such missteps. They moved from fourth to second as the evening wore on with a polished steady performance.
“We came into the event and we really wanted to have fun ... When we have fun, that’s when we dive well,” said Benfeito.
McKay, in her first multi-sport games, admitted to some nerves although they didn’t show.
“I think we help each other kind
of loosen up and relax and understand we know what we’re doing,” said McKay. “And we’re in it all together.”
Jun Hoong Cheong and Pandelela Rinong Pamg won the gold with 328.08 points with fellow Malaysians Leong and Sabri taking bronze with 308.16. The Canadians finished at 312.12.
Benfeito won the event in 2014 with the now-retired Roseline Filion. She also won the individual 10-metre event in the Glasgow games and a bronze in the 10-metre synchro in 2006.
The evening competition went smoothly, in stark contrast to the windy, glitch-filled lunchtime session at the outdoor Optus Aquatic Centre.
Australian Maddison Keeney, who finished last with partner Anabelle Smith after a botched final dive received zero points from the judges, fought back tears after the event.
“It was just kind of stress on top of stress that we don’t need,” Keeney said of the technical complications.
“It was a lot of distraction,” echoed the 22-year-old Citrini-Beaulieu, a native of St-Constant who is competing at her first multisport games.
But she saw positives.
“We’re a great team and we have good chemistry,” she said. “I don’t doubt this. It was just a bad day.”
Abel, a three-time Olympian, also chose to look at the promise of the first three dives rather than complain about the conditions.