Benfeito and Filion held the lead for the first three rounds of the 10m synchro, until a score of 68.31 for their Back 3.5 Somersaults, Tucked, in round four pushed them back into second behind Chen and Liu who produced two strong final dives to secure the win.
Of their early scare Chen Ruolin said: “This morning our warm up wasn’t very good. But we encouraged each other and came back. We are happy to win.”
Filion and Benfeito were disappointed to have come so close and just miss out, Filion saying: “It was so close, I made a mistake on the fourth dive, if I did a normal one like I usually do it would have been an easy gold for us, but it’s part of the learning process. The most important thing is that we move forward. We’re a lot closer now and we’ll get the one that really counts. I couldn’t look at the positive side straight afterwards but today’s event proves we are working in the right direction and doing the right stuff. It’s still early in the season, so we’ll have other opportunities I’m sure.”
Benfeito added: “I looked at the scoreboard, I knew we were close. Knowing that we made a big mistake like that and that we were only 3 points away proves that we are getting closer and we are working hard. I think in the next competition it’s just going to get better.”
Jun Hoong Cheong and Mun Yee Leong (MAS) - credit: Giorgio Scala/Deepbluemedia
The Malaysian duo of Jun Hoong Cheong and Mun Yee Leong took bronze, finishing just 2.46 points ahead of Lara Tarvit and Melissa Wu of Australia, with Paola Espinosa and Alejandra Orozco (Mexico) in fifth. Great Britain’s Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow looked a threat early on when they performed the best dive of round 2, but could not maintain their form, finishing in sixth.
Malaysia’s Cheong, who took silver with Leong last week in Beijing, said: “Our performance was fine, but we can do better on our synchronisation. We have to work on that.”
The second event of the morning session was the men’s 10m synchro and the Chinese pair of Lin Yue and Chen Aisen dominated from the outset, outscoring all teams on all but one dive.
Their first dive, a Forward dive, Piked, scored the first tens of the competition from two of the judges. Their top scoring dive of the day was 95.04 for a Back 3.5 Somersaults, Piked, which gave them an unassailable lead and saw them finish with 484.23, 57.96 points ahead of Mexico’s German Sanchez and Ivan Garcia on 426.27.
The men's 10m synchro podium - credit: Giorgio Scala/deepbluemedia
Chen said: “Today’s performance was normal, but on some dives and some details we did not perform very well. We have been training hard and will work on our consistency.”
Garcia was pleased with the silver after taking bronze in round one. “I felt better today than last week in China, my dives were better, I needed to train more.”
Sanchez said: “We were more comfortable this week, I was more nervous last week, after three months without competition. I feel more comfortable, more relaxed and more powerful."
“We aim to be the best in the world, we will keep working for that. It’s not impossible. We have a higher degree of difficulty so we are training to be better than China. We have big dreams, we want to be the best."
German World champions Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausding moved from fifth into third on their last dive, and finished with 415.20 to add a bronze to the silver they won in Beijing last week.
Hausding was happy with third, but critical of his performance, saying: “Our first two required dives were not very good and we’re not happy with it. Our optionals were ok, but my second one was not so good. The 207B was very bad, we have to work on it but we’re still happy for third place.”
“I’m happy to be back in Dubai, the World Series competitions are very very good, the best divers are here and we are very happy to compete. This is great preparation for the World championships” added Klein.
Canada’s Philippe Gagne and Vincent Riendeau improved on their sixth in Beijing to finish fourth, with Cuba’s Jose Guerra and Jeinkler Aguirre just 1.59 points behind in fifth. Colombia’s Victory Ortega and Juan Rios finished in sixth, with USA’s Jordan Windle and Toby Stanley in seventh.
In the first event in the evening session, the women’s 3m synchro final, the result was never in doubt. The Chinese current world champions Shi Tingmao and Wu Minxia went into first place with their first dive and never relinquished that position. They outclassed the rest of the field, and finished with 338.10, 22.59 points ahead of Canada’s Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware.
After scoring nearly ten points more overall than last week, Wu said: “Today we did better than Beijing, it was the first competition last week and we were a bit nervous.”
The Canadians were happy with their return to form after placing fifth in Beijing after missing a dive, Abel saying: “We are really happy about the performance, I think we did five really great dives, obviously there’s still dives we can do better but we’re really satisfied."
Ware added: “We weren’t happy at all with fifth in Beijing, we weren’t expecting that, it was a fluke so this week we were hoping to come and be strong again. So we are happy with this.”
Paola Espinosa and Dolores Hernandez (MEX) - credit: Giorgio Scala/Deepbluemedia
In a tight finish only 2.40 points separated third and fourth places. The Mexican team of Paola Espinosa and Dolores Hernandez missed one dive but managed to hang on for the bronze with 303.90, with Australia’s Maddison Keeney and Annabelle Smith finishing in fourth on 301.50, unable to recover from a low scoring fourth dive, and missing the chance to add to the silver medal they won in Beijing last week.
Rebecca Gallantree and Alicia Blagg of Great Britain had the support of the crowd who hoped to see the team on the podium. After sitting in third place from round two to round four, their last dive proved costly and their 64.17 score for their Forward 3.5, Piked, dropped them to fifth. Anastasiia Nedobiga and Viktoriya Kesar of Ukraine finished in sixth on 294.39.
The final event of the evening, the men's 3m synchro, produced another tight finish, and while Qin Kai and Cao Yuan held the lead in every round, the rest of the world-class field pushed them hard. With even the smallest error proving costly in this level of competition, the Russian team of Kuznetsov and Zakharov found themselves in fifth place in round three. Three strong dives to finish, including the top score of the night, a 95.76 for their Forward 4.5, Tucked, secured the silver.
After scoring nearly 20 points more overall than last week in Beijing, Cao said: “We just paid attention to each dive and concentrated better.”
Zakharov was happy with their result, saying: “All the time, we weren’t in last but fifth or fourth, but the last dive was very strong. We felt better here, we scored better and physically we feel better, the time is almost the same as Moscow and that helps us a lot.”
Germany’s Patrick Hausding and Stephan Feck also recovered from a lower scoring second round dive to take bronze in a repeat of the medal placings from Beijing last week.
Ilia Zakharov and Evgeny Kuznetsov (RUS) - credit: Giorgio Scala/deepbluemedia
Hausding was much happier than after his performance in the 10m synchro in the morning, and said: “It was a very high level competition tonight, we saw many great dives and rarely any mistakes from the other divers. We are very happy with third in this field, I mean, the whole world is here, so getting third is very good.
“I was quite nervous, I am a diver that watches the others during the competition and I saw no one is making any mistakes. Everyone’s making great dives so one little thing and you’re last. So the second dive wasn’t the best but we increased well."
Feck added: “We just aim to do our best and focus on what we are doing, we watch the other divers but concentrate on us.”
Jack Laugher and Christopher Mears finished fourth with 436.38, ahead of Jahir Ocampo and Rommel Pacheco of Mexico in fifth, Philippe Gagne and Francois Imbeau-Dulac in sixth and brothers Troy and Dwight Dumais of USA in seventh.
Courtesy of Sarah Marks, in Dubai