USA Diving | FINA World Championships
KAZAN, Russia ââ'¬" Purdue divers past and present David Boudia and Steele Johnson finished fifth in the men's synchronized 10-meter final Sunday at the FINA World Championships.
Boudia and Johnson scored 436.35 points, 4.98 points out of the bronze medal. China's Chen Aisen and Lin Yue topped the field with 495.72 points, with Mexico's German Sanchez and Ivan Garcia scoring 448.89 for silver. The Russian duo of Victor Minibaev and Roman Izmailov won the bronze with 441.33 points.
The Americans were in a three-way tie for second through two rounds but dropped to sixth after scoring 73.92 points on an inward 3 ½ tuck in round three. They fell another spot to seventh with 78.54 points on a reverse 3 ½ tuck in round four before closing out the night with 83.25 points on a front 4 ½ tuck and 95.04 points on a back 2 ½ with 2 ½ twists to finish in fifth place.
"Fifth is not ideal. That's not where we want to be. We were a little below average in rounds three and four, and we were just shy of second and third place. Obviously it's not fun to be in this position, but ultimately we know what we're capable of. There are a lot of pros to walk away with going into February and the World Cup," Boudia said.
The three medalists qualified their countries a spot into the 2016 Olympic Games, with four remaining spots to be determined at the 2016 World Cup. The U.S. pair was third at the 2014 World Cup in Shanghai.
Boudia and Johnson scored 451.02 points to finish second behind China in the morning preliminaries, when they scored 99.90 points on their front 4 ½ tuck and 90.72 points on their back twister.
"We've been training really hard and working on all our dives. I've been having a lot of trouble with my 4 1/2, especially after Mexico (at a World Series meet in late May). My main thing the past month or so has just been trying to get that dive back. It happened to be my best dive in both lists, so that was really cool to see," Johnson said.
Boudia and Johnson finished second in the men's synchronized 10-meter preliminaries Sunday morning. They scored 451.02 points to finish second behind the Chinese team of Chen Aisen and Lin Yue (470.13) and ahead of the Russian duo of Victor Minibaev and Roman Ismaelov (443.07) in the preliminaries. The top 12 teams from the preliminaries advanced to the finals.
Boudia is scheduled to compete individually on 10-meter later in the World Championships. The prelims and semifinals are set for Saturday, Aug. 1 and the championship final the following day.
-- Story by Jen Lowery, USA Diving