Canada wins two diving gold at Pan Am Games

Updated：2007-07-27 From：Xinhuanet

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Canada won two gold medals in Thursday's diving tournament at the Pan American Games.

World champion Alexandre Despatie, who was beaten in Wednesday's 3m synchronized springboard, finally proved his strength, winning the men's 3m springboard title with 503.65 points.

It was a hard victory for Despatie though, as runner-up Cesar Castro of Brazil was just less than 10 points behind him.

Troy Dumais, an American Olympian, finished third at 484.25 points.

The women’s 10m platform synchronized diving gold went to Canadian pair Emilie Heymans and Marie-Eve Marleau who finished the competition with a total of 327.30 points.

Mexican combination Paola Espinosa and Tatiana Ortiz Galicia finished second at 325.14 points. The bronze medal was taken by Americans Haley Ishimatsu and Mary Beth Dunnichay at 297.54.

"Finally it's over. We were under pressure, the wind was blowing hard, but we were prepared for the event. We are very happy for having the same result of Santo Domingo," said Heymans, who also won the title four years ago in Santo Domingo.

Paola Espinosa of Mexico said their performance surpassed the expectations: "I'm very happy with our result. I'm sure we did beyond all our coaches' expectations, and we're extremely happy with that. We missed the gold for a small difference of points, but we did our best and fortunately we got a good place on the podium."

Her partner Titiana said: "Our next aim is to get a good result at the University Games in Thailand. I'm certainly happy with the silver medal and I'll practice even more to get better results in the next competitions."