FINA Diving Grand Prix: Canadians add to medal count on Day 2

After hauling in six medals in five events on Saturday, the Canadian diving team was back in the pool on Sunday for Day 2 of finals at the Canada Cup in Gatineau, Que.

It was an eventful start to the day when the power went out at the Gatineau Sport Centre, putting the men's 10-metre synchro on hold (there were no Canadians competing in this event). The French and Chinese athletes fought to stay focused until the lights came back on and computers scoring systems started working again. 

Ware, Abel defend silver medal

Two Canadian pairs competed in the first event of the day: the 3m synchro. Pamela Ware and Jennifer Abel put Canada on the podium with a silver medal, scoring 300.30.

Chinese divers Chunting Wu and Zhihuan Xu won the gold medal, while Australia won bronze. 

Two Canadian junior champions showed fans what the next generation of Canadian 3m synchro will look like; 16-year-old Olivia Chamandy and 15-year-old Mia Vallée competed alongside their veteran teammates to gain experience competing at this high level. The two finished fifth but executed their dives well through all five rounds.

More power problems 

Another power outage hit the pool just before the men's 3m springboard event got underway. Canada's Francois Imbeau-Dulac was the first diver up and was forced to leave the platform as they fixed the problem. It wasn't long before he was back up on the podium to start what proved to be an interesting competition.

Japanese diver Sho Sakai balked in the third round (when an athlete initiates a dive but stops before taking off) and in the last round, China's Zhiyi Sun managed to tie things up with Canada's Philippe Gagne which is an unusual occurrence in diving. Both divers had 469.55 at the end of the competition, but were forced to share the silver medal by France's Matthieu Rosset who had an amazing event. He won gold with 504.15. 

The silver is Gagne's second medal of the event; he and Imbeau-Dulac won gold yesterday in men's 3m synchro.

Imbeau-Dulac didn't have his best performance in this event. He finished in sixth and last place.

Filion back at it

It is hard to imagine Canada's Roseline Filion had a broken ankle just 5 months ago.

There was no trace of hesitation in her performance today in the women's 10m platform. In the fifth and final round, Filion battled it out with Japan's Minami Itahashi for gold. Itahashi had a solid final dive and Filion needed a near-perfect dive for gold. It was a high pressure moment but the Canadian delivered; her final total of 377.00 secured the gold medal.

"I'm back to normal," said Filion of her injury when talking to CBC Sport's Brenda Irving earlier in the competition. "I'm training my usual program like I did before the accident so I'm just enjoying the time, doing my dives and following the plan as usual so I'm really excited about that.

"The chapter of this injury is done."

Filion's teammate and synchro partner Meaghan Benfeito also competed in the 10m platform; she finished sixth. 

Canada added another silver medal in the final event of the day, taking it home in the 3m mixed synchro. 

Jennifer Abel and Francois Imbeau-Dulac fell behind the Chinese duo of Bowen Huang and Chunting Wu. The Swiss team of Jessica Favre and Guillaume Dutoit finished third.