Nathan Zsombor-Murray and Rylan Wiens earned their nomination to the Canadian Olympic Team in the open platform event on Thursday at the 2021 Canadian Diving Trials. On the women’s side, Celina Toth earned a nomination following her successful performance in the open platform competition at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre.
The 2021 Canadian Diving Trials allowed Canadian divers to claim their Olympic spots ahead of the Tokyo Games. A total of six spots were up for grabs this week.Â
With the team heading to the Olympics taking shape, Diving Plongeon Canada’s Chief Technical Officer, Mitch Geller, believes the divers’ experience at May’s World Cup at the Tatsumi Aquatics Centre in Tokyo will set the team up nicely for the Games.
“I think that our success there, knowing that we love the facility and being in a facility that we had great success in already and being able to visualize what the Olympic environment is going to be like, especially for the kids that are going to their first games, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Geller said. “I’m really glad that we had the opportunity to go there, and I think we have a hell of a team that’s going back there.”
There were two Olympic spots up for grabs in the men’s open platform event this week in Toronto.
Zsombor-Murray (Montreal, QC) is heading to his first Games after putting together a cumulative Olympic qualifying score of 1028.40.
Entering the final round, the 18-year-old knew he didn’t have much room for error with Wiens and Ethan Pitman (Montreal, QC) all in the hunt.Â
“I knew I needed to put my dives down and I needed to stay consistent to secure a spot for myself” said Zsombor-Murray. “I really tried to stay calm and collected throughout the six rounds and put everything on my head. I think I did that fairly well.”
Wiens (Saskatoon, SK) is also headed to his first Olympics after putting together a qualifying score of 983.05.
The 19-year-old entered this week’s trials with the highest pre-qualification score following his bronze medal performance at the World Cup and admittedly felt some additional pressure as the leader in the event.Â
“Definitely felt pressure, because the top three of us, we all had relatively similar scores,” Wiens said. “Pretty much anyone could have won that event, whoever was on today, could have won the event. I know I just needed to put down a solid list. I had a lot of pressure on to do that list and I ended up pulling through, so I was quite happy with that.”
Toth (St. Thomas, ON) secured the lone quota spot in the women’s open platform competition with a combined Olympic qualifying score of 659.55.
“That was the first competition, real one, in a year and a half, so it gave me some pressure, that’s what I need to dive well so that was nice,” said Toth. “I was just fighting against myself, which is honestly my hardest competitor. It didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped in the end, in the performance in the finals today, but it’s great to have something to work for going into Tokyo and to improve that’s what always gives me fire.”
Meaghan Benfeito previously received a pre-nomination for the women’s open platform event in Tokyo.
Full results: http://www.issmembership.com/diving/live/schedule.aspx
About Diving Plongeon Canada
Diving Plongeon Canada (DPC) was established in 1967 as a not-for-profit organization to promote the growth and awareness of the sport in this country. As a member of FINA, the world’s governing body of aquatic sports, DPC contributes to the development of globally accepted standards of excellence in diving and supports the rules and regulations of international competition. Representing nine provincial diving associations, 67 local diving clubs and close to 4,000 high-performance athletes, DPC shares a national commitment to advance the art and sport of diving and to position Canada as the number one diving nation in the world. For information, visit www.diving.ca.Â
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For more information:
Jeff Feeney
Director, Events and Communications
Diving Plongeon Canada
C: 613-668-9668 | jeff@diving.ca