Diving World Cup: Italy, Malaysia, Great Britain and Germany in the Olympics

The FINA Diving World Cup in Rio (BRA) this year, from February 19-24, has the noble mission to offer more places for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in August.

With the tension and natural responsibility that a participation in the event brings to the athletes who competed in the only final of the second day at the Maria Lenk Aquatic Stadium that went to the decisive phase – the women’s synchronised 3m springboard – made a tight competition.

The World Cup decision distributed the last four places of synchronised 3m springboard to the Olympics. As China, Canada and Australia had already classification guaranteed by the FINA World Championships in 2015, remaining spots went to Italy, Malaysia, Great Britain and Germany, respectively ranked between 4 and 7. Brazil will also dispute the event in the Olympics for being the host country.

Shi Tingmao and Wu Minxia, two stars from China, won the race in the prelims (316,80) and in the final (339,60). Shi has four gold medals in the FINA World Championships history and Wu has her name in the first place of eight events in the history of the World Championships and four Olympic victories.

“Jumping and competing is what we love to do. The more titles, the more increase the challenges keep us fit and concentrated to maintain the high technical level. We will continue training and focus to return to the podium in August” said Wu.

In the prelims, Italians Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape were very close to the Chinese duo (306, 78), but in the final they finished fourth (303,99). The silver medal was achieved by the Canadians Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware (312,27) and the bronze for the Australians Samantha Mills and Esther Qin (307.50).

The third day will have women’s 10m platform with the exciting dispute between the Malaysian Pandelela Pang and the Chinese Si Yiajie and Ren Qian.

Germany and China, as of the first day of competition in Rio, are promising a great dispute.

Germans Sacha Klein and Patrick Hausding were the first in the prelims. Klein/Hausding made 433,50 points against the 415, 38 from Chen Aisen and Lin Yue. Ukraine and Korea were also near as they respectively finished third and fourth, and were separated for small details with 413,64 and 413,16.