MOTHER NATURE MUDDIES THE WATERS AT PARC JEAN-DRAPEAU
Montréal, July 14, 2023 – Tornado warnings in the Greater Montréal area disrupted Thursday’s competition schedule at the Montréal Junior National Diving Festival. Although the Group A 10-metre platform final and the Group B 1-metre springboard final were completed, the Group D 3-metre final had to be delayed until later in the week.
Despite the unstable weather, the power outages and the tornado warnings, Renée Batalla (Boardworks) put in an excellent performance on Thursday afternoon, clinching the gold medal in the Group A platform event. The British Columbian, who also won gold at the same event in 2022, earned a total of 453.80 points to end her day at the top of the podium on Thursday.
She was joined on the podium by Julianne Boisvert (Envol) and Kayden Hayes,her teammate at Boardworks. Boisvert also came in second last year, behind Batalla.
In the Group B 1-metre springboard event, Lila Stewart (Regina) completed a gold medal hat trick at the Junior National Festival. Earlier this week, she won gold medals in the Group B 3-metre springboard and platform events. On Thursday, the diver from Saskatchewan won her third gold medal of the week with a score of 384.15, edging out Quebec’s Kelly-Ann Tessier (Camo) and Alberta’s Lila Gokiert (Calgary), who finished second and third, respectively.
The challenging weather conditions seemed to favour Stewart and Gokiert, who also won medals on Monday and Thursday, despite the heavy rains that fell on Montréal all week.
Unfortunately for the divers in the Group D 3-metre event, the competition could not be completed. It will resume this weekend, at the latest. However, two qualification heats were carried out in full. Sara-Jade Tessier (Envol) led the scoring with 223 points.
The Montréal Junior National Festival will continue on Friday at Parc Jean-Drapeau, with the girls’ Group C 1-metre final and the boys’ Group B 3-metre, Group D 1-metre and Group C platform finals.
For the complete schedule or to view the competition, click here.