TORONTO.—Cuban diving duo José Antonio Guerra and Jeinkler Aguirre won the gold medal for the 10 meters synchronized diving event, held at the Aquatic Center in this city on July 13.
Once the duo reached the fifth round, their accumulated points left no doubt that they has secured the gold medal, surpassing the two consecutive silver medals gained in Rio 2007 and Guadalajara in 2011. The final score of 439.10 decided the competition, ahead of Canada (404.34) and Colombia (403.23).
Guerra, the more experienced of the pair, said, “Our work was very constant, scoring about 8.5 points in almost all executions. We didn’t allow ourselves to get carried away by the heat of competition, we kept a cool head, and this result against representations that we faced in the six stages of the World Series puts us in a very satisfactory position ahead of the next world championship.”
The Cubans began with a score of 52.20, behind the Colombian team composed of Víctor Ortega and Juan Guillermo Ríos, who scored 52.80 and in the second round went on to lead the competition with 106.20, ahead of Canadians Philippe Gagne and Vincent Riendeau, who scored 105.60, putting them in third position. In the next round the Cubans left the diving pool having raised their score to 185.88, easy slipping into first place, although Mexicans Iván García and José Rubalcaba appeared on the scene to take third (174.48). In the fourth dive they reached 270.36 points, ahead of the Colombians (258.00) and the competition hosts (252.24).
They stormed the fifth round gaining 357.96 points to secure their place on the podium, ahead of Colombia (330.96) and the Canadians (324.66), and by the sixth dive they were unbeatable.
On the first day of the 10 meter individual dive, Aguirre saw a poor performance, finishing fourth. As he explained to Granma, “I was not focused and the audience impacted on me. I failed in one of my main dives, the triple somersault and half twist, and that took me out of the medals chart. In Guadalajara I gave a similar performance and also finished fourth.”
