2021 Virtual Nationals Simulation presented by 1 Square Phillips – Saturday
Meaghan Benfeito wrapped up the final day of competition at the 2021 Virtual Nationals Simulation presented by 1 Square Phillips in the top spot in the women’s open platform finals. Caeli McKay and Éloise Bélanger finished second and third on Saturday.
On the men’s side, Nathan Zsombor-Murray finished as the top seed while Rylan Wiens and Ethan Pitman rounded out the Top 3 in the open platform finals.
Benfeito (Laval, QC) finished with a cumulative score of 348.90 ahead of McKay’s (Montreal, QC) combined score of 334.10 and Belanger’s (Montreal, QC) 279.95.
For Benfeito, the virtual event provided an opportunity to gauge where she is at with her training ahead of next month’s World Cup event.
“We’ve been talking about it at the pool lately that we strive on adrenaline and competing and that is really what was missing at training,” Benfeito said. “We can train so much but if we don’t compete, we never know where we are at in our training. That felt really good to actually see what our dives are worth and what we have to work on now since we actually have that information to go back to training.”
The 32-year-old was particularly satisfied with her final dive on Saturday afternoon—the inward three-and-a-half somersault tuck—which scored her 67.20 points from the judges.
“My last dive is usually the one that causes me the most trouble, especially in the last couple of months, it’s been really hard to get that dive back to where it was,” Benfeito explained. “But in the prelims, semis and the final, it was getting a lot better so that’s something that I’m happy with. Obviously, it’s not where it was or where I want it to be, but I’m actually pretty happy with it.”
Zsombor-Murray (Pointe-Claire, QC) compiled a score of 446.40 while Wiens (Saskatoon, SK) put together a cumulative score of 430.30 points and Pitman (Montreal, QC) finished with 401.10.
The competition provided an opportunity for Wiens to work a new dive into his list.
“I was pretty happy with how I did. I was working on consistency. I put a new dive on my list, the four-and-a-half, and it was the best one of my competition so far,” Wiens said. “I was pretty happy with that.”
The 19-year-old admitted he was frustrated with how his final dive of the competition went—the reverse three-and-a-half somersault—but after a year without events, Wiens was happy to be back in front of judges.
“It was really nice to get back in competition,” he said. “Training can kind of seem long when there’s no competition anywhere near and just getting back in the competitive spirit is really good and it helps drive to continue to get better in the sport.”
Full results can be found here: http://www.issmembership.com/diving/live/schedule.aspx
About Diving Plongeon Canada
Diving Plongeon Canada (DPC) was established in 1967 as a not-for-profit organization to promote the growth and awareness of the sport in this country. As a member of FINA, the world’s governing body of aquatic sports, DPC contributes to the development of globally accepted standards of excellence in diving and supports the rules and regulations of international competition. Representing nine provincial diving associations, 67 local diving clubs and close to 4,000 high-performance athletes, DPC shares a national commitment to advance the art and sport of diving and to position Canada as the number one diving nation in the world. For information, visit www.diving.ca.