July 15, 2018
Diving: Peter Thach Mai wins first FINA Grand Prix medal
Diving Canada – Peter Thach Mai wins first FINA Grand Prix medal
MADRID – Peter Thach Mai of Montreal reached the podium for the first time in his career on the FINA Grand Prix diving circuit on Saturday with a silver medal on men’s three-metre springboard.
Juan Celaya of Mexico took the gold medal with 421.20 points, Thach Mai followed at 409.85 and Nicolas Garcia Boissier of Spain was third at 408.15. Jianfeng Peng of China, the leader after the semis, failed a dive in the final and was fifth.
‘’It was a super stressful competition for me,’’ said Thach Mai, 19. ‘’I didn’t even look at the scores in the final, so I didn’t know I was in medal contention going into the last dive. It’s super exciting to get the medal.’’
Thach Mai, with three fourth place Grand Prix finishes in his career, earned 388.75 points for second spot in the morning preliminaries and 398.45 for third overall in the semis.
The highlight in Thach Mai’s list are two twisting dives with a high degree of difficulty, which were landed successfully throughout the day.
‘’They are becoming more and more consistent for me,’’ he said. ‘’When I do them well they are worth a lot of points. I didn’t feel my dives were as solid as they could be but my entries were good.’’
On women’s 10-metre Elaena Dick of Edmonton was seventh in the preliminaries and ranked seventh overall in the semis and did not advance to Sunday’s final.