Canada's Simoneau wins artistic swimming silver at World Aquatics Championships
2-time Olympian finishes behind gold medallist Evangelia Platanioti of Greece
Jacqueline Simoneau ended a long medal drought for Canada on Saturday.
The returning 27-year-old from Montreal secured an artistic swimming silver medal in the women's solo technical at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar.
Simoneau, a two-time Olympian, finished 3.6866 points behind gold medallist Evangelia Platanioti of Greece (272.9633). China's Huiyan Xu took bronze (262.3700).
"This medal is just a cherry on top. I didn't come back for medals, I just came back because I love to swim," said Simoneau, who took a two-year break from swimming to pursue a degree in podiatry medicine.
Simoneau is also set to compete on Sunday in the women's solo free event.
"It has a high degree of difficulty, and it has an artistic component to it. I can't wait to show it because it has a little something special on it."
Canada's last artistic swimming medal in the competition came in 2011 in Shangai, with a bronze in a combo event that's no longer part of the worlds.
Before that, four-time Commonwealth champion Marie-Pier Boudreau Gagnon's bronze in Rome 2009 served as Canada's last solo artistic swimming medal at worlds.
WATCH | Simoneau swims to silver in Doha:
In other Canadian results, Emma Finlin fell just short of earning a spot at the Olympic Games despite posting the best 10-kilometre race of her young career.
The 18-year-old Edmonton native finished 24th out of 71 women in Saturday's 10km open water race, finishing just 0.7 seconds behind 23rd-place finisher Martha Sandoval of Mexico, who earned the final qualifying spot for the Americas.
Coming down to a 📸 finish. <br><br>Finlin was looking for her 🎟️ to Paris but was just shy of making her Olympic berth by 0.7 seconds in the 10k at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AQUADoha2024?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AQUADoha2024</a> <br><br>🔗 <a href="https://t.co/4mfVIDqouk">https://t.co/4mfVIDqouk</a> <a href="https://t.co/3pi7D1WEqr">pic.twitter.com/3pi7D1WEqr</a>
—@SwimmingCanadaDutch swimmer reclaims open water gold
That event ended with Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands reclaiming the women's open water world title, beating Maria de Valdes of Spain with a furious sprint to the finish.
Van Rouwendaal touched first at the World Aquatics Championships in one hour, 57 minutes, 26.80 seconds — 1-10th of a second ahead of de Valdes. The bronze went to Angelica Andre of Portugal, who was 1.4 seconds behind the winner.
On the last of six laps around the Old Doha Port, Moesha Johnson of Australia faded from the lead to fourth as van Rouwendaal showed off her finishing kick in the final 500 meters of the rough-and-tumble race.
In other finals on Day 2 of the first world championships held in the Middle East, 13-year-old Huang Jianjie and Zhang Jiaqi gave China a diving gold in the mixed 10-meter synchronized platform event.
China, which claimed 12 of 13 diving golds at the Fukuoka worlds, did not enter the first two events on Friday, giving other nations a chance to shine.
Many countries sent scaled-back teams to Doha, which is hosting the worlds a year behind schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That timing placed it just five months ahead of the Paris Olympics, the first time the championships have been held in the same calendar year as the Summer Games.
Huang and 19-year-old Zhang brought some normalcy back to the diving pool, romping to victory with 353.82 points. Zhang won gold at Fukuoka in this event while paired with Wang Feilong.
Jo Jin Mi and Im Yong Myong of North Korea took the silver in 303.96, while the bronze went to Kevin Berlin Reyes and Alejandra Estudillo Torres of Mexico at 296.13.
Mexico earns 2nd diving gold medal in history
Osmar Olvera Ibarra gave Mexico its second diving gold medal in the history of the competition, winning the men's 1-meter springboard.
Olvera became the first diver from a country other than China to claim the top spot in the event since Alexandre Despatie of Canada in 2005.
Paolo Espinosa is the only other Mexican diving world champion, capturing gold on the 10-meter platform at Rome in 2009.
The 19-year-old Olvera was a silver medalist on both 1- and 3-meter springboard at last summer's world championships in Fukuoka, Japan. Now, he's got some gold-medal momentum with the Paris Olympics just five months away.
Olvera led the morning preliminaries and cruised through the final, posting a score of 431.75 points over six dives. The silver went to Li Shixin of Australia at 395.70, while Ross Haslam of Britain took the bronze in 393.10.
With files from The Associated Press
