30 novembre 2016
Two top-12 finishes for Canada at FINA World Junior Diving Championships
Diving Plongeon Canada – KAZAN, Russia- Peter Thach Mai of Montreal and Mia Vallée of Beaconsfield, Que., finished 11th and 12th in their respective finals on Tuesday in day two action at the FINA World Junior Championships in diving.
On men’s three-metre in the 16-18 age group, Nikita Shleikher of Russia won the gold medal with Chan Linhai of China second and Alexander Matthew of Switzerland third.
Thach Mai was also 11th in the preliminaries and was hoping to fare better in the final.
‘’For prelims I dove a bit safe,’’ said the 18-year-old. ‘’My goal was to qualify for the final. For finals I took a risk, by changing one of my dives. Even though there were some mistakes I managed some pretty good dives.
In the girls 14-15 one-metre, Maria Cobourn of the U.S. was the winner with Yixian Liang of China second and her compatriot Xiaojie He third.
Vallée was delighted with her performance.
‘’I was really happy with how it went,’’ she said. ‘’Some of my dives have been off lately and I brought them well together today I had a dive I went over in both in the prelims and final but overall I was happy with my performance.’’
It is the first world juniors for the 15-year-old Vallée.
‘’It really exciting to be here with so many amazing divers,’’ she said. ‘’I’m really pumped and it was just an amazing experience.’’
On Monday in the mixed team event, Canada placed fourth with Thach Mai, Olivia Chamandy of Montreal, Gabriel Corriveau of Terrebonne, Que., and Rylan Wiens of Saskatoon. They missed the podium by only 7.2 points. Britain, Mexico and China were 1-2-3.
More information: www.fina.org and Diving Plongeon Canada