August 21, 2004
Athens � Canadians Emilie Heymans of St-Lambert, Que., and Myriam Boileau of Blainville, Que., advanced to Sunday's final in the women's 10-metre platform diving.
Heymans, the world champion, was fifth in Saturday's semi-finals with a cumulative score from the preliminaries and semi-finals of 538.17 while Boileau was ninth at 517.56.
The top 12 divers moved on to the final.
"My first dive was not as good as the others, especially my second one for which I got high marks," said Heymans. "I can do better dives than today. Tomorrow I will try to be focussed. Today I was little nervous."
Loudy Tourky of Australia led the semi-finals with a score of 560.10, well ahead of China's Lao Lishi at 551.97.
Aussie Chantelle Newberry was third with 545.25 followed by Olena Zhupina of Ukraine, who led after the preliminaries, with 543.57.
Preliminary scores are dropped for the final, which will be combined with the semi-finals to decide the winners.
Heymans will be looking for her second medal of the Athens Games on Sunday. She earlier won bronze with Blythe Hartley in the synchronized platform.
Heymans was a silver medalist in the synchronized 10-metre event in Sydney four years ago, when the event made its Olympic debut, teaming with Anne Montminy to finish second.
Montminy won the bronze in the individual tower while Heymans finished fifth.
In 2003, Heymans won the world title in Barcelona as well, as three gold medals at the Pan Am Games in Santo Domingo.
But surgery for a skin infection in January caused Heymans to get off to a slow start this year.
She was fifth at the opening World Cup in Athens the following month, but then won in Madrid and placed second in Victoria and in The Woodlands, Texas, to rank first overall on the FINA Grand Prix circuit.
put on line by SVP