Diving Canada – NAPLES, Florida – Ethan Pitman of Edmonton and Laurent Gosselin-Paradis of Montreal won the bronze medal in men’s 10-m synchro on Friday in diving action at the Summer Universiade.
It was Canada’s first podium at the Games which started Tuesday.
Lizhi Cao and Zigan Huang of China took the gold with 431.16 points, Andres Villareal and Jose Dieg Balleza of Mexico were second at 394.26 and the Canadians followed at 374.97. There were nine entries.
‘’Our goal was to get on the podium but we’re still surprised because we weren’t at our best,’’ said Pitman, a business student at Concordia University in Montreal.
The medal came in dramatic fashion as the Canadians nailed their final twisting receiving high marks for their synchronisation to climb from fifth to third.
‘’ That’s probably our best dive,’’ said Pitman. ‘’We didn’t know our placement but we figured we were behind because the dive before hadn’t gone so well.”
Pitman and Gosselin-Paradis joined forces two seasons ago.
‘’We have really good chemistry and we are also good friends,’’ said Gosselin- Paradis, a human sciences student at Collège André-Grasset in Montreal. ‘’We had a great week in training and we wanted to finish it off on a high note.’’
In the women’s three-metre preliminaries, Mia Vallée of College Maisonneuve in Montreal advanced to the semis placing seventh while Olivia Chamandy, also a student at André-Grasset, was 19th.
Competition continues Saturday with the semis and final on women’s three-metre.
Full results: 30th Summer Universiade – Napoli 2019 – Main Results