Diving Plongeon Canada – They got what they came for.

Canada’s Philippe Gagné and François Imbeau-Dulac finished fourth in the men’s 3m synchro springboard, to highlight Tuesday at the FINA Diving World Cup, in Wuhan, China.

By being in the Top 6, the pair qualifies for next season’s FINA Diving World Series, the most elite diving tour.

“Our goal was to end up in the top six tonight to qualify for the world series so to have done that after I think it’s our best placement in a world cup or world championships,” said Montreal’s Gagné. 

“And with a really good score, one of our best, so I think we’re really happy with that.”

Gagné, 20, and Imbeau-Dulac, 27, both Canadian Olympians, were seventh at the Diving World Cup in Brazil two years ago, and fifth at the world championships in 2015.

On Tuesday, they were seventh after the third dive, but fought their way into fourth over the second half, scoring a total of 410.67 points.

“It was very nerve-wracking to get, especially on the last dive, knowing that we were so close to our goal,” said Imbeau-Dulac, from Saint-Lazare, Que.

“It was just about staying composed and doing the job like we normally do in practice, we’ve been working incredibly hard to get in synchro and also to do our dives almost the same technically, it was a long road to get here and it worked.”

China’s Yuan Cao and Siyi Xie won the event with 448.74 points.

In the women’s 10m platform preliminary, Montreal’s Meaghan Benfeito, and Celina Toth, of Victoria, both qualified for Wednesday’s semifinal. The final is later in the day.

Gagné and Imbeau-Dulac have a quick turnaround, as they’ll be in the preliminary of the men’s 3m springboard, Wednesday afternoon in Wuhan.

Full results can be found here: https://bit.ly/2LpLBsT

For more information:

Dominique Ladouceur

Consultant, Communications and media relations

Diving Plongeon Canada

C: 514-576-2379 | dominique@diving.ca