David Boudia (Noblesville, Ind./West Lafayette, Ind.) closed at the 2015 FINA World Championships with the silver medal on 10-meter on Sunday, giving Team USA its second medal of the Championships.
Boudia has won the silver medal at the past three World Championships, having also finished second in Barcelona in 2013 and Shanghai in 2011. This time he finished with 560.20 points, second only to China’s Qiu Bo, who won his third consecutive world championship gold with 587 points. Great Britain’s Tom Daley finished third at 537.95.
“This was an exciting competition. I didn’t really watch a lot of it, but you can feel the pressure. You can’t miss a dive in these finals. This is not an easy competition. Anyone from the finals could be up here. We were just the ones who were on top of our game today,”
— Boudia
Boudia scored 91.8 or more points on five of his six dives in the finals, opening with 99 points on his armstand and following up with 92.5 points on his inward 3 ½ tuck to lead Qiu by four-tenths after two rounds. Qiu took the lead in round three with 94.5 points on his armstand, while Boudia received 92.5 on his front 4 ½ tuck. Qiu remained in the lead for the duration of the contest.
Boudia was first in the preliminaries and fifth in the semifinals on Saturday. He switched up his dive order for the finals, opting to start with his armstand and then perform his inward in round two. He started with his inward in both prelims and semifinals and scored just 78.40 and 73.60 points on the dive Saturday, compared to the 92.5 points he received on it in the finals.
“The prelims and the semis don’t matter. It starts over at zero. You have a fresh start and any one of us could be on top. For me, I switched my order (in the finals) to start off with one of my strongest dives, and it paid off. It set me up from there. It was a good final. Overall this competition was exactly what I was looking for,”
— Boudia
Also on Sunday, Abby Johnston (Upper Arlington, Ohio/Durham, N.C.) and Jordan Windle (Morrisville, N.C./Durham, N.C.) were ninth in mixed gender synchronized 3-meter. They finished with 287.70, while China’s Wang Han and Yang Hao won gold with 339.90 points.
In addition to Boudia’s silver, the U.S. also picked up a bronze medal from Michael Hixon (Amherst, Mass./Bloomington, Ind.) on 1-meter earlier in the championships. Team USA also secured two quota spots for the 2016 Olympic Games, earning one spot on men’s 10-meter as a result of Boudia’s performance and one spot on women’s 10-meter after a sixth-place finish by Amy Cozad (Indianapolis, Ind./Bloomington, Ind.). Cozad’s finish was the best by an American woman on that event since Laura Wilkinson was fourth in 2007.
The next opportunity for the U.S. to earn quota spots for the 2016 Olympic Games will be the FINA World Cup in Rio de Janeiro in February.
With competition in the pool complete, World Championships diving action heads to the Kazanka River venue with high diving set to begin Monday.
