MONTREAL - Jennifer Abel of Laval, Que., and Emilie Heymans of St-Lambert, Que., qualified for the women's three-metre final and clinched a spot on Canada's world team on Thursday to open the Canada Cup Grand Prix diving competition.
Abel placed second in one of two semifinal heats earning 330.90 points, which was also the second best score overall, finishing behind Han Wang of China at 373.00. The top-three in each of the semis advanced to the final.
"It was a consistent start to the competition for me,'' said Abel, 19. "I was feeling pretty nervous but it was great to start strong in prelims. With the crowd behind us, I'm looking forward to see how well I can do in the final.''
In the other semi, Jiao Liu of China was first at 345.45. followed by Heymans at 324.00 and Uschi Freitag of Germany at 300.80.
Both Heymans and Abel qualified in preliminaries for the 2011 FINA World Aquatic Championships in Shanghai this July by being assured a top-two Canadian finish here and earning at least 320 points.
"I still get nervous about any qualifying event,'' said Heymans, a three-time Olympic medallist. "It's a big load off my shoulders and definitely one of my biggest goals for this meet. My performance was very solid and I was able to concentrate on what I needed to do.''
In other results, Pamela Ware of Montreal was seventh and Jo-Annie Dubois of Quebec City 13th. Ware did not advance because of a limit of two divers per country for the 12-woman semifinal.
In the men's 10-metre tower semifinals, Riley McCormick of Victoria and Eric Sehn of Edmonton, both dealing with injuries, did not advance to the final. McCormick did score 435.95 points in the prelims to earn a berth on the world championship team. The standard to beat was 425.
"That's a score I should get but I've been so busy with school and dealing with injuries that I was pretty nervous about getting that standard,'' said McCormick, who has battled back and hand injuries the past few months. "It was a great relief to get it and once in the semis I took more risks.''
Sehn underwent wrist surgery following last fall's Commonwealth Games. This was his first competition back and his list also included two new dives.
"I'm not where I want to be yet but I thought it was a pretty good performance for my first one this season,'' said Sehn, who has also stopped competing on three-metre this year to focus on tower and 10-metre synchro with partner Kevin Geyson of Winnipeg. "The two new dives went really well and the increase in the degree of difficulty should be worth some valuable points down the road.''
Geyson was 13th in the prelims and Nicholas Lachance of Montreal 22nd.
