Imbeau-Dulac, Abel win bronze
Jennifer Abel and François Imbeau-Dulac got Canada back on the podium in the final event of the FINA Diving World Series on Sunday.
Montreal’s Abel and Imbeau-Dulac of Terrebonne, won bronze in the mixed three-metre synchronized competition to claim Canada’s third medal of the three-day competition.
Chang Yani and Yang Hao won gold. Thomas Daley, who won gold in the men’s 10-metre platform Sunday, and Grace Reid of Great Britain finished second.
“Obviously, it wasn’t our greatest performance but, I mean, we made three pretty big mistakes and we were still able to be on the podium,” said Abel, who also won a silver medal Friday.
Abel and Melissa Citrini-Beaulieu of St-Constant finished second in the women’s three-metre synchronized competition. Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal and Caeli McKay of Calgary also won silver in the women’s 10-metre synchronized Friday.
Abel and Pamela Ware of Ville Lemoyne each qualified for the women’s three-metre springboard final, but missed out on the podium.
China took the first two places in the three-metre competition, with Wang Han winning her second straight gold in the series after finishing second in the season opener. Shi Tingmao, who won gold in the first stop in Sagamihara, Japan, won her second straight silver.
Abel scored 79.05 on her third dive, a forward 31/2 somersaults. But her bid for the podium took a blow when she scored 44.20 on her following dive, a forward 21/2 somersaults with two twists.
“That’s a make-or-break dive, and unfortunately for me today it broke,” Abel said. “But what I’m happy about is that I started it well, I had good rotation speed, so it’s going to be easy enough to work it out for next time.”
She finished in fourth place with 331.75 points, 23.10 points behind Australia’s Maddison Keeney. Ware finished in fifth place.
“Today I was not able to get myself into it,” Ware said. “There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t encourage myself enough to do well, but it happens. And today, it just wasn’t my day. I still made it to the final, which is very positive when I feel like this. At least it’s good to know that I can still be in the top five on my bad days.”
China finished second and third behind Daley in the men’s 10-metre final, with Yang Jian claiming silver and Yang Hao winning the bronze.
Daley also won silver along with Matthew Lee in the men’s 10-metre synchronized competition Friday.
“Obviously I’m really happy with the results,” Daley said. “It’s my most successful World Series ever, two silvers and a gold coming away from this weekend. There were some things in the diving competition list that I would have liked to do a little bit better, but to do enough to win gold on any day, it feels great. So it’s nice to be able to compete against the Chinese and win.”
Vincent Riendeau of PointeClaire finished fifth.
The series continues with its fourth of five stops in Kazan, Russia, from May 10-12.