Diving Canada – NAPLES, Italy – Olivia Chamandy and Mia Vallée of Montreal were less than four points from a podium finish on Sunday on women’s three-metre synchro in diving action at the 2019 Summer Universiade.
It was the third fourth place finish for the Canadian divers at the Games and the second for Vallée in two days. Canada does have one bronze medal earned by Ethan Pitman of Edmonton and Laurent Gosselin-Paradis of Montreal on men’s 10-m synchro last week.
Dolores Hernandez Monzon and Carolina Mendoza of Mexico won the women’s three-metre synchro gold with 291.00 points. Minghong Leng and Yi Shen of China were second at 288.60 and Daria Lenz and Carolina Sculti of the U.S. third at 274.20.
Chamandy and Vallée followed at 270.84 out of eight entries. The costliest dive for the Canadians was their backward dive in the fourth of five rounds for which they received 4.5’s for execution.
‘’That probably cost us a medal,’’ said Chamandy, a student College André-Grasset in Montreal. ‘’But it was the best diving we’ve done all week, our synchronisation was bang on. We’ve been together since 2015, we feel we are heading in the right direction, but it’s a slow progress.’’
‘’It’s been a long competition here and we are proud to with how we finished,’’ added Vallée, a student at College Maisonneuve in Montreal. ‘’It’s a bit frustrating getting fourth again but we feel we did as best we could.’’
In the men’s 10-m preliminaries, Gosselin-Paradis and Pitman both advanced to the semifinals ranking fourth and seventh.
The diving competition at the Games ends Monday with the semis and final on men’s tower and the team event.
Full results: 30th Summer Universiade – Napoli 2019 – Main Results