Two fourth place finishes for Canadian divers at world juniors
KIEV, Ukraine – Nathan Zsombor-Murray of Pointe-Claire, Que., and Henry McKay of Ottawa both placed fourth on Thursday at the FINA World Junior Diving Championships.
In the men’s one-metre final in the 16-18 age group, McKay nearly won his second medal this week placing fourth with 507.65 points.
Zongyuan Wang of China was first at 557.65, his compatriot Zheng Li second at 526.85 and Matthew Carter of Australia third at 517.90.
‘’I felt happy after every dive today,’’ said McKay. ‘’I was really motivated by the fact that this was my last junior competition. It kept me focused to try my hardest. What cost me the medal today was simply my degree of difficulty on some of my dives wasn’t high enough.’’
Victor Povzner of Maple, Ont., second after the preliminaries was eighth. McKay and Povzner won gold on men’s three-metre synchro on Tuesday.
‘’There weren’t any major mistakes in the final,’’ said Povzner. ‘’But all of my dives weren’t up to the level which I could achieve. So it was more about the minor mistakes.’’
On men’s 14-15 platform, it was another 1-2 Chinese finish with Zelin Yao first at 481.85 and Zewei Wang second at 481.40. Maksim Malofeev of Russia was third at 467.85.
Zsombor-Murray followed in fourth at 441.40 and Cédric Fofana of Quebec City was ninth.
‘’I was quite nervous about the final because I had a chance for a medal,’’ Zsombor-Murray said. ‘’On the last dive I had calculated what I needed to get on the podium which was a very high score and the stress got the best of me.’’
Competition runs through to Sunday.
