Diving Plongeon Canada – When Jennifer Abel gets upset, she gets better.

The Olympian won a bronze medal in the women’s 3m springboard, one day after what she called a disappointing personal performance in the synchro springboard event with partner Mélissa Citrini-Beaulieu. 

“I’m exactly where I want to be and that’s the reason why I was disappointed with my performance in synchro yesterday, I was the one who missed and I got really upset at myself,” said the native of Laval, Que.

On Thursday, Abel and Citrini-Beaulieu were sixth in the final, a drop off from their silver medal performance the previous week at Diving World Series #1 in Sagamihara, Japan.

Today, in the individual event, Abel was determined to be better.

“I think I was pretty consistent today, I was focusing on what I had to do, I was really thinking about doing my dives like I know how to do them without having any second guessing and I didn’t pay attention to the scoreboard today,” said Abel.

The 27 year-old put up 332.70 points to finish third behind two Chinese divers. Han Wang won the event with 377.40 points, and Tingmao Shi took the silver medal with 367.00 points.

Canada’s Pamela Ware was fourth in the final by collecting 306.70 points.

Later in the evening, Abel was at it again, this time scoring a silver medal with François Imbeau-Dulac in the mixed 3m synchro springboard.

“I was really happy to be beside Frankie, it’s always fun to perform beside him,” said Abel, “It’s so easy to dive with him, we know each other so well, we trust each other.”

The Canadians managed 304.08 points, after going back and forth with both the British and Australian teams. In the end, Brits Tom Daley and Grace Reid were third-place with 294.39 points while Hao Yang and Yani Chang, of China, took the gold medal with 315.21 points.

“I think the Chinese are beatable and we are almost there, we just need to have some better entries, but the synchro is there,” said Imbeau-Dulac, from St-Lazare, Que.

“We knew that we dove very well and we’re excited to come back to Montreal stronger and try to get better results,” said the 28 year-old, referencing the Canadian stop of the Diving World Series, in late April.

Earlier in the day Imbeau-Dulac did not advance to the men’s 3m springboard final, and neither did Olympian Philippe Gagné.

Next up, on Saturday, it’s Meaghan Benfeito and Celina Toth’s turn to compete in the women’s 10m platform while Rylan Wiens and Vincent Riendeau will make their 2019 Diving World Series debuts in the men’s platform.

Later Benfeito and Nathan Zsombor-Murray will team up in the mixed 10m synchro platform event to close out Day 3 in Beijing.

Detailed results are available through: 

https://bit.ly/2VBINOG

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For more information:

Maelle Dancause

Manager, Public Relations

Diving Plongeon Canada

C: 514-475-4540 | maelle@diving.ca