David Dinsmore reacts during the men's 10-meter platform final at the 2018 USA Diving Senior National Championships on May 20, 2018 in Dallas.
The back 2½ somersault with 2½ twists is David Dinsmore’s favorite dive, and he used it to good purpose Sunday at the FINA Diving World Cup in Wuhan, China, as he clinched bronze in the men’s 10-meter platform, his second bronze of the competition.
The University of Miami junior’s week in China was bookended by medal ceremonies, and both were in some part due to Dinsmore’s prowess with a dive that is as hard to execute as it is to describe. On Monday, Dinsmore paired with Krysta Palmer for bronze in the team event (in which Dinsmore competed men’s 10-meter and Palmer women’s 3-meter), edging a Malaysian pair by just 1.04 points after Dinsmore delivered 88.20 points on his final dive, which carries an impressive 3.6 degree of difficulty.
The 21-year-old had a larger margin of victory in the men’s 10-meter final, totaling 489.80 points over six dives to finish nearly four points ahead of his nearest challenger, 2016 Olympian Benjamin Auffret of France.
With visible errors on half of his attempts in Saturday’s preliminary round, Dinsmore, the reigning U.S. champion, was only 12th among the 18 divers who qualified for the semifinals, but he turned six much stronger dives to finish third in the semis. Then Dinsmore matched his feat from the 2016 World Cup, where he also earned bronze, punctuating his performance in Wuhan with two excellent final dives that earned 91.80 and 90.00 points, respectively.
China, long renowned for producing the world’s best in diving, did not disappoint at home. Chen Aisen, the gold medalist in 10-meter platform and 10-meter synchronized platform from the Olympic Games Rio 2016, was dominant in Wuhan, defeating countryman and “difficulty king” Yang Jian, the reigning world bronze medalist, by a healthy 20 points.
On the women’s side, Americans Brooke Schultz and Murphy Bromberg tied for fifth with Ukraine’s Anna Pysmenska and Viktorya Kesar in the 3-meter synchronized event with 274.80 points. China’s Tingmao Shi and Yani Chang dominated the field to take gold with 334.80 points.
Dinsmore’s two bronzes (one with Palmer) were Team USA’s only medals at the World Cup.
Blythe Lawrence is a journalist based in Seattle. She has covered two Olympic Games and is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
