Diving – Canadian tandem edged by 0.87 points for bronze medal

RIO DE JANIERO, BRAZIL, August 7, 2016 – For Jennifer Abel (Laval, QC) and Pamela Ware (Greenfield Park, QC), one point either way doesn’t undo four years of striving to become a synchro team.

The pair finished fourth in the Olympic women’s three-metre synchro after coming up just short of their objective on their last two dives at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre. Abel and Ware scored 298.32 points, coming within a point of the bronze medallists, Australia’s Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith with 299.19. China’s Tingmao Shi and Minxiu Wu won the gold with 345.60, while Italy’s Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape’ scored 313.83 for the silver.

“This is still something special, usually the teams have been together for many years,” said Abel, who teamed with the now retired Émilie Heymans to earn the bronze at the 2012 London Olympics. “Every Olympics is different, I’m with Pam this time. It doesn’t hurt because of last time [2012]. We’re still fourth at the Olympics. It’s not something that we should not proud of – how many people can say they were fourth at the Olympics?

“I’m just saying that I’m sorry because I know I can do better. We’ve been medallists so many times at so many competitions – yes, today we are sad, but tomorrow is another day and we’re proud of the four years of work that we’ve done.”

Abel and Ware, who were seventh of the eight teams in the dive order, went into their closing forward 2½ somersault single twist needing 69 points (average judge’s score of 7.6) to defeat Keeney and Smith. They scored 67.50.

“You know when you’ve missed a dive,” the 24-year-old Abel said. “And you know when it’s going to be pretty much tied in the score. So I kind of knew that it was probably over. But at the same time you always wish that you can still get that half of a point that would have made the difference.”

Keeney and Smith performed that same dive for their finale, scoring 71.10 to move into medal position.

In the fourth set of dives, Abel and Ware came away with a 68.82 score for their forward 3½ somersaults.

“We have four more years to work up to another medal so I’m really excited,”

Ware said. “We gave it our all, that’s what counts.”

Abel and Ware are competing in women’s 3m, which begins on Friday.

“I think it’s really good for us to pull back, and get focused on our individual events,” Ware said.

Meaghan Benfeito (Montreal, QC) and Roseline Filion (Laval, QC) compete in women’s 10m synchro on Tuesday. The pair come into the direct final as the reigning silver medallists from the 2015 World Aquatics Championships, and are also reigning Olympic bronze medallists.

Complete results / Résultats complets :
https://www.rio2016.com/en/diving-schedule-and-results