Diving Canada - Saturday at the 2020 Winter National Championship in Saskatoon, Sask. provided Jennifer Abel and Mélissa Citrini-Beaulieu their first opportunity of the season to compete alongside one another. 

With Abel (Laval, Que.) and Citrini-Beaulieu (Saint-Constant, Que.) already qualified for both the 2020 FINA World Cup (Tokyo, April 21-26, 2020) and the 2020 Olympic Games, the five dives, which saw them collect 306.54 points on Saturday, provided an opportunity for the pair to iron out some of the details.

“It was kind of stressful because it was the first competition of the season. So, yeah, we’re proud of us and we did a good job to begin the season,” Citrini-Beaulieu, 24, said. “There’s things we need to work on, but it was a good start. Now we know what to work on, the little details, but we’re mostly proud of what we did today.” 

Added Abel: “It was a great test event, we’re ready. We’re already looking forward to practicing together to be even stronger, but it was nice to break the ice. It has been a long time since we competed beside each other.” 

Saturday’s competition started with the women’s 3m preliminaries which saw Margo Erlam, who trains in Saskatoon, take the top spot. The 17-year-old Calgary, Alta. native collected 324.7 points, seven more than defending champion Pamela Ware (317.7). 

Abel, already qualified for the World Cup in the women’s 3m, finished third in the prelims with 290 points. 

“It was the first day of the season so I’m pretty happy even though I did a major mistake in the with my third dive,” Abel, 28, said. “But I’m not worried for tomorrow or the other competitions, I know exactly what I did, what went wrong and it is usually a dive I can do pretty good, so I’m not worried at all.” 

On the men’s 10m side, Tyler Henschel sits in top spot following Saturday afternoon’s prelims after scoring 471.05 points. Vincent Riendeau, who secured a spot at the World Cup by winning the men’s 10m synchro final with Nathan Zsombor-Murray on Thursday, collected 465.45 points.

Hometown boy Rylan Wiens rounded out the Top 3 finishing third with 453.95 points. 

Two World Cup spots remain up for grabs in the men’s 10m.  

Competition concludes on Sunday at the Shaw Centre in Saskatoon with both the women’s 3m semi-final and final as well as the men’s 10m semi-final and final.

The 2020 Winter National Championships has 44 of the country’s top divers in action with the 2020 Olympic Games just seven months away.  In addition to vying for podium finishes and national titles, this competition is the final opportunity for many athletes to qualify for the 2020 FINA World Cup (Tokyo, April 21-26, 2020). The World Cup is the last chance for Canada to secure Olympic quota spots for Tokyo 2020.

Full results can be found here: http://www.issmembership.com/diving/live/schedule.aspx
 

-30-

 
For more information:
Maëlle Dancause
Manager, Public Relations
Diving Plongeon Canada
C: 514-475-4540 | maelle@diving.ca