Diving Plongeon Canada – Canada picked up five medals in as many finals on Saturday, to highlight a successful day at the Canada Cup FINA Diving Grand Prix in Calgary. 

Philippe Gagné, 20, and François Imbeau-Dulac, 27, captured gold in the men’s 3m synchro springboard with a score of 396.30 points.

Still, Imbeau-Dulac was not completely impressed, “For some reason we were not that happy, it’s not our best performance and I think we can do so much better,” said the Olympian from Saint-Lazare, Que.

“We are incredibly happy with the gold sure, but it’s a bitter-sweet feeling because we know we can get at least 25 or 20 points higher.”

In the busy spring competition season, preparing for the synchro can fall down the priority list.

“We got only one practice of synchro in since we got here to Calgary and it was this morning,” said Montreal’s Gagné.

The Calgary crowd helped, “It’s always incredible to dive in front of a home crowd, we love to take the energy of the crowd and put it into our dives and it’s always helpful,” said Gagné.

Meaghan Benfeito, 29, and Nathan Zsombor-Murray, 15, were also golden, in the mixed 10m synchro platform with 310.50 points. 

The pair also won a Diving World Series gold medal together in Montreal last month.   

It was Benfeito’s second medal of the night. The Montrealer won silver, with Calgary’s Caeli McKay, in the women’s 10m synchro platform (303.42 points).

“We didn’t have the pressure and the adrenalin that we usually get during the world series or at the commonwealth games,” said Benfeito. 

“Obviously we would have wanted to win that event, it would have been really, really awesome to finally beat the Chinese but we’re going to have to wait a couple more days.”

In the men’s 10m platform, Pointe-Claire, Que’s Vincent Riendeau turned in 442.50 points, good enough for the silver medal. 

“I was aiming definitely for the first step of the podium but I’m still very happy with what I did,” said the 21 year-old, “In the past three weeks of competition I’ve been diving more consistently.”

Canada’s Ethan Pitman was sixth in the same final. 

Three-time Olympian Jennifer Abel, 26, was third-place in the women’s 3m springboard (342.90 points), followed by Montreal’s Pamela Ware, 25, who scored 330.55 points. 

Here are the Canadian finalists preparing to compete on Sunday:

Women’s 3m synchro springboard final (11:30 am MT):

Margo Erlam and Ashley McCool

Men’s 3m springboard final (12:55 pm MT):

Olympians Philippe Gagné and François Imbeau-Dulac

Women’s 10m platform final (2:24 pm MT):

Calgary’s Caeli McKay

Men’s 10m synchro platform final (3:35 pm MT):

Rylan Wiens and Bryden Hattie

Ethan Pitman and Laurent Gosselin-Paradis

Full schedule and other Canadian results can be found here: https://www.canadacupdiving.com/
 

For more information:

Dominique Ladouceur

Consultant, Communications and media relations

Diving Plongeon Canada

C: 514-576-2379 | dominique@diving.ca