August 15, 2004
Divers shut out in synchro events
Donna Spencer
ATHENS (CP) - Canada's divers had a dry run of Olympic competition in Saturday's synchronized competitions, winning no medals but looking forward to upcoming events where they hope to contend.
Alexandre Despatie and Philippe Comtois finished fifth in the men's 10-metre tower, which was a solid result for the pair as Comtois is a springboard specialist.
Emilie Heymans and Blythe Hartley - both medal hopefuls in other categories - posted a disappointing seventh-place finish in the women's springboard after leaving their best performances in their morning training session.
Despatie, a gold-medal contender in individual tower and springboard later in the Games, felt his Olympics got off to a strong start.
"I think it was good we started with synchro because now we know the feeling, we know what these Olympics are like and I know what to expect for the next events," said the 19-year-old from Laval, Que. "Of course, a medal would have been nice. Today the competition was very strong and these guys weren't going to let anything past."
The Chinese won both diving gold medals in commanding fashion.
Tian Liang, the defending Olympic gold medallist in the individual tower, and Yang Jinghui were awarded some perfect scores of 10 on three of their five dives to take the men's tower. Peter Waterfield and Leon Taylor of Britain were second despite not hitting the water at the same time on their final dive. Australians Mathew Helm and Robert Newbery were third.
Wu Minxia and Guo Jingjing led the women's springboard from the first of the five dives. Russians Vera Ilyina and Yulia Pakhalinia were second and Australians Irina Lashko and Chantelle Newbery, wife of Robert, were third.
The synchronized events were held well into the evening, with the women's final starting at 9 p.m. local time and the men commencing after 10 p.m.
"The day was really long. We woke up at 7:30 this morning and we started competing at nine tonight," said Heymans, a gold-medal contender in the women's tower.
"It was just a long time of waiting."
The 5,700-seat Olympic Aquatic Centre was nearly full. Spectators waved flags from the various countries and whistled derisively, particularly during the men's event, when they felt the judges scored their divers too low.
But scores were high in the men's tower, reflecting a highly competitive event. Despatie and Comtois, from Montreal, had good synchronization, although Comtois did not have the quality of Despatie's dives over five rounds.
Although he's been diving for more than a decade, Comtois said he's only worked on the 10-metre tower diving "on and off," and only for the past year and a half in synchronized dives with Despatie.
"Only five dives, I do the best that I can," Comtois said. "I missed a little bit of the fourth dive, but it was good."
Hartley, from North Vancouver, B.C., and Heymans, from St-Lambert, Que., will compete together again in the women's synchronized 10-metre event Monday. Canada did not qualify for the men's synchronized springboard.
Hartley and Heymans, both 22, were not in sync Saturday and Hartley, who is more powerful and has a higher takeoff than her partner, was often late entering the water behind Heymans.
"They looked great in workout this morning and I thought they had a really good shot at a medal, so to walk away with a seventh certainly doesn't make anybody stand up an cheer about," said team coach Mitch Geller.
Said Hartley: "We're both just sad because we didn't show what we're capable of. We didn't come in expecting a medal. We weren't looking at the results. We just felt we were practising well, so we're disappointed that wasn't what like our practices were."
Synchronized diving made its Olympic debut in Sydney four years ago, doubling the number of diving events from two to four. Heymans and Anne Montminy won a synchro silver on the women's tower, but the Canadian team continues to make the individual events the priority.
Geller says Canada needs more depth in diving so it can develop better matched diving pairs than the ones here.
"We need a lot of good divers so we have a lot of choices for pairings," he explained.
"Right now, I don't believe our depth is there. We only have six divers here and they're diving all the events."
Nine judges - two more than for individual diving events - are broken down into a group of four that inspects individual dives and five that review synchronization.
But the judging still seems to be a work in progress, given the staggered entry of the Brits on their final dive. Geller said judges often reward two strong individual dives with a high degree of difficulty over synchronicity.
"The judging is going to have to be consistent with the sport if it's going to stick around," he said. "It keeps getting better, mind you."
The Canadian team will head to their off-site training base in Patrus, about 200 kilometres from Athens, for four days after Monday's synchro event. But Heymans and Myriam Boileau of Montreal will remain in the athletes village because the women's tower competition opens Friday.
put on line by SVP
