FINA WJDC 2016: Russian divers claim bronze in synchronised 3m springboard final

Day 3 of the FINA World Junior Diving Championships ended with the Russian national team’s bronze medal win in the synchronised 3m springboard event. Nikita Nikolaev and Artyom Bezdenezhnykh placed third with 313.56 points.

“We’ve accomplished our goal – we took a medal. Of course, we would have loved to win gold but alas; we will need to work more, especially, on our synchronicity,” the Russian divers said. “We didn’t watch our rivals’ performance – it only unsettles us. Instead of following other duets’ performance, we need to focus on our own one.”

Nikita Nikolaev and Artyom Bezdenezhnykh revealed that they train 5-6 hours per day. Despite being effort consuming, this sport is very beautiful, the athletes say. They also admitted that since their childhood they have been fans of two-time Olympic champion Dmitry Sautin and London 2012 Olympic silver medallists Ilya Zakharov and Evgeny Kuznetsov.

Lou Massenberg and Patrick Kreisel of Germany topped the podium with 316.98 points. The athletes said that they were pleased with their performance and they are overwhelmed with emotion after their victory at the tournament.

China’s Chen Linhai and Li Pingan placed second with 314.73. The day before, Chen Linhai already climbed the podium, after he claimed silver in the 3m springboard event, losing the title to Nikita Shleikher of Russia.

“Not everything worked out well. We haven’t gotten in shape yet. Several dives went bad, including the third one, with several summersaults. It's a difficult programme but we’ve been honing it for a long time; we must do better,” the Chinese divers admitted.

“We competed against very strong athletes from Germany, Russia and other countries. It’s an honour for us to perform at the Kazan tournament; a good experience. But we are not done yet; we will perform in the 1m springboard,” the silver medallists admitted.