MONTREAL – Émilie Heymans of St-Lambert, Que., beat out the reigning world champion for the silver medal on Saturday in the women’s 10-metre tower at the 2008 Maple Leaf Simply Fresh Canada Cup diving competition.
Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal and Jennifer Abel of Laval, Que., added a bronze on women’s three-metre synchro.
The competition being held this week at the Olympic Park's Sports Centre in Montreal is also the fourth stop on the FINA Grand Prix circuit.
On women’s tower, Melissa Wu of Australia scored a string of 9.0.s on her final dive to win the gold medal with 399.25 points. Heymans, the world champion in the event in 2003, scored big points on her first and last dive for the silver at 388.90. World champion Wang Xin of China was third at 379.60.
‘’It went very well,’’ said Heymans. ‘’I’m particularly satisfied that I was solid in all three parts of the competition (the preliminaries, semifinals and final). That’s what I’ll build on for the Olympic trials (in June).’’
Chen Ruo Lin of China was fourth at 366.55 and Roseline Filion of Laval, Que., was fifth at 352.40.
‘’That was one of my best international scores in a long time,’’ said Filion. ‘’I went in with the attitude that I had nothing to lose and tried to have fun. It was a consistent and solid performance.’’
On women’s three-metre synchro, Minxia Wu and Jingjing Guo of China were the victors at 350.40. Briony Cole and Sharleen Stratton of Australia were second at 303.18 and Benfeito and Abel were third at 291.66.
‘’We are very satisfied with our performance,’’ said Abel. ‘’It was definitely beyond our expectations. There are some details we need to iron out but that will improve with practice.’’
