David Dinsmore (New Albany, Ohio/Miami, Fla.) advanced to the finals and finished sixth in men’s 10-meter to lead the U.S. in individual events at the third leg of the 2019 FINA Diving World Series, which wrapped up Sunday in Montreal.
Hailey Hernandez (Southlake, Texas), Michael Hixon (Amherst, Mass./Bloomington, Ind.), and Katrina Young (Shoreline, Wash./Tallahassee, Fla.) all just missed the finals by one spot as they each finished fourth in their semifinals. In World Series individual competition, divers compete in one of two semifinals and the top three finishers in each semifinal advance to the finals.
Dinsmore scored 455.95 points to finish sixth in Sunday’s 10-meter final, which Tom Daley of Great Britain won with 550.05 points. Dinsmore, who finished second with 479.55 points in his semifinal to advance to the final, scored 86.70 points on a reverse 3 ½ tuck and 84.60 points on a back 3 ½ pike in the final. China won silver and bronze as Yang Jian finished with 537.60 points and Yang Hao scored 497.15 points.
Young finished seventh overall after just missing the women’s 10-meter final on Saturday. She scored 320.80 points for fourth in her semifinal, 2.9 points behind third-place finisher Kim Mi Hwa of North Korea. Young was in second place with one round to go after scoring 62.40 points or higher on three of her first four dives. She closed out her list with 62.40 points on a back 2 ½ with 1 ½ twists, but Kim scored 76.80 points and Great Britain’s Lois Toulson had 72 points on the same dive to drop Young to fourth in the semifinal standings.
Hixon scored 436.55 for fourth in his men’s 3-meter semifinal and seventh overall on Saturday. His best dive came in round three, when he received 82.25 points on a reverse 1 ½ with 3 ½ twists. Heading into the last round, he was just 6.35 points out of third place and had his difficult front 4 ½ tuck still remaining. He scored just 66.50 points on the dive, not enough to bump him into the final. On Friday, he and synchro partner Andrew Capobianco (Holly Springs, N.C./Bloomington, Ind.) were in a similar situation, as the pair was in fourth place with one round to go in the 3-meter synchro final and the front 4 ½ still to come. They came through with 85.50 points on the dive to finish with the 3-meter synchro bronze.
Hernandez finished fourth with 280.70 points in her women’s 3-meter semifinal, good for 10th overall on Sunday. She was in sixth place after missing her second-round front 3 ½ tuck but climbed to fourth after scoring 63 points on a back 2 ½ tuck in the third round. She also scored 63 points on a front 2 ½ with one twist in the final round.
Young also paired with Tyler Downs (Ballwin, Mo./Indianapolis, Ind.) in Saturday’s mixed 10-meter synchro final. They scored 271.53 points for seventh place. China’s Lian Junjie and Si Yajie won gold with 342.21 points.
The U.S. divers will now prepare for the upcoming USA Diving Senior National Championships, which are set for May 19-26 in Indianapolis and will serve as the trials for this summer’s FINA World Championships.
