Wiens and Zsombor-Murray dive to bronze at the FINA World Championships
Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray have claimed bronze in the men’s 10m synchro event at the FINA World Championships in Budapest, Hungary and made history with Canada’s first ever world championship medal in the men’s 10m synchro event.
The Canadian duo finished third in the competition with a score of 417.12. China’s Hao Yang and Junjie Lian won gold with a score of 467.79. Britain’s Matthew Lee and Noah William collected 427.71 points to finish with the silver medal.
The Canadians took fourth place in qualifying in what was shaping up to be a fight for the podium with the British duo, who were third, and the Australians then fifth.
After the first two rounds the Canadian duo sat in sixth place — less than five points from second.
On their next dive they climbed to fourth scoring 78.72 points on their dive as the battle for the podium began between the Canadians and the duo of Kirill Boliukh and Oleksii Sereda from Ukraine.
Their best dive of the night came in round four carrying a 3.7 degree of difficulty — the most difficult dive on their list. While other teams seemed to struggle this round the Canadian’s nailed their dive scoring a 84.36 to pass the Ukrainians and take third place.
During the fifth and six rounds they scored 79.56 and 79.68 respectively on to hold onto their podium spot.
The duo of Wiens and Zsombor-Murray made their competitive debut at the FINA Diving Grand Prix in Calgary a few weeks ago where they the top spot on the podium following a 436.56-point performance.
READ: Canada takes home six medals at the FINA Diving Grand Prix Canada Cup in Calgary
Szombor-Murray — who is just 19 years old — made his international debut in 2017 when he competed at the 2017 FINA World Championships teaming up with triple Olympic bronze medallist Meaghan Benfeito in the mixed 10m synchro event. Last summer he also travelled to Tokyo 2020 where he finished fifth in the 10m synchro competing with Vincent Riendeau.
The 20-year-old Wiens is taking part in his first World Championships this week. He was a member of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic team and competed in the 10m platform event.
On Monday, Canadian Caeli McKay was also in action in Budapest placing 5th in the 10m platform on the 1-year anniversary of an ankle injury she sustained just before competing for Team Canada at Tokyo 2020.
On Wednesday, Mia Vallée won the bronze medal in the 1m springboard — an event that is not on the Olympic program. The 21-year-old diver tallied 276.60 points to finish behind Chinese Yajie Li (300.85 points) and American Sarah Bacon (276.65 points). This is Vallée’s first career World Championship medal.
Diving events at the FINA World Championships will continue until Sunday.
