McCormick, Heymans lock up Olympic diving spots

Riley McCormick won the men's 10-metre final and Emilie Heymans topped the women's three-metre event at the Canadian Olympic diving trials in Montreal on Saturday.

McCormick assured a spot in his second straight Olympics this summer in London with a total score of 979.80. He had already claimed the first place before his final dive.

"I'm really excited right now and very, very happy with how things went," McCormick said. "My last dive there was probably the worst one I've done in a few years, but the emotions at that point took over and I knew I had already made it. I could have pretty much just jumped off the platform."

The 20-year-old Victoria native still finished well ahead of runner-up Eric Sehn, who had a total score of 863.65.

"It's not about how much I won by, it's the fact that I'm on the team now and it's finished," said McCormick, who finished 16th in his 2008 Olympic debut in Beijing. "I can relax and focus for London."

Heymans also easily outdistanced her competition in the women's 3-metre final to claim Canada's second women's spot to compete in the event in London.

The 30-year-old veteran from St-Lambert, Que., and three-time Olympic medallist finished with a total score of 685.35. Pamela Ware came in second with a total of 617.85.

"I'm really happy because I finally competed like I was training and that was really important to me because training was going really well," Heymans said. "I don't make that many mistakes in training so I was really happy that I didn't make any big mistakes in competition as well."

She had already qualified to compete in her fourth straight Olympics in synchronized diving with partner Jennifer Abel.

"I knew that I was part of the team in synchro for sure before coming in today but I just really wanted to finish well in individual as well," said Heymans, who won a silver medal in the 10-metre event in Beijing in 2008.

She also won a silver medal in platform synchronized diving in 2000 in Sydney and a bronze medal in the same event four years later in Athens.

Abel had already qualified for the 3-metre competition in London and did not compete Saturday.

Sehn had a strong final to edge out Kevin Geyson for second place in the men's three-metre final. He will have to wait until June 9 to find out if Canada will have a second spot in the event in London, as determined by FINA.

The women's 10-metre and men's three-metre finals will be held Sunday, and the Olympic diving team will be officially announced Monday.