Yes, the headline is intentionally chaotic – but it accurately reflects the equally confusing but necessary diving event that took place to determine which synchro partnerships were best equipped to represent USA Diving on the World Cup circuit. Rather than forcing the best individuals together into partnerships, each duo was tested head-to-head against other mix-matched pairings. This is how David Boudia and Nick McCrory beat themselves to earn the top spot in men’s 10-meter synchro.

According to a press release: “Divers were permitted to dive with more than one partner as part of High Performance Director’s Steve Foley’s plan to emphasize synchronized diving and try out potential pairings, thus increasing competition within the United States.”

The winners were determined after two consecutive lists. After the first list, long-time synchro partners Boudia and Finchum were in the lead by 12.54 points. Following them were Finchum/McCrory and third Boudia/McCrory. After the second list, however, Boudia/McCrory managed to edge out Boudia/Finchum by 3.03 cumulative points.

As you can imagine, this adds up to a lot of diving for David Boudia, Thomas Finchum, and Nick McCrory who each dove a total of 4 complete lists on 10-meter platform during the meet. It is also doubly frustrating for Thomas Finchum who essentially got bested twice in one event.

Swimmers: this would be sort of like swimming lead in one relay and anchoring another in the next lane – exhausting!

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The 2009 USA Diving Spring National Championships, sponsored by Speedo, begin today in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I found this thumbnail picture of the Hall of Fame pool on Flickr. It’s a nice change from the traditional picture (open in new window) that is used over and over and over…

You can obviously read more about the event on USADiving.org, but if you want to join the 21st century, you can also become a fan of USA Diving on Facebook and RSVP to the event. Sara Hildebrand, Drew Livingston, Hayden Jones, and Christina Loukas are already listed as attending.

Who else can you expect to see at the meet? The Facebook event name-drops a list of athletes who will be competing:

2009 World Championship team members Brittany Viola (Orlando, Fla.) of the University of Miami, Nick McCrory (Chapel Hill, N.C.), Allison Brennan (Huntington Beach, Calif.), and Kristian Ipsen (Clayton, Calif.). Divers defending their 2008 Spring Nationals 1-meter titles, Victoria Ishimatsu (Seal Beach, Calif.) and Ryan Helms (Moultrie, Ga.) are also scheduled to attend.

Meet results will be posted on DiveMeets.com, and you can check the full list of entries here.

I’m a huge fan of the amount of attention Universal Sports is giving to the FINA Diving World Series. The site will be providing LIVE coverage of the diving events April 18th-19th (which means an early start time for those of us watching on this side of the pond).

Aside from the webcast coverage, Universal Sports also has a great collection of photos from Getty Images, including pictures from the World Series diving event in Doha.

Check out this article they posted on Wednesday, with quotes from Thomas Finchum and USA Diving High Performance Director, Steve Foley. As mentioned in a previous post, the dynamic duo of Finchum and Boudia will not reunite until the World Series moves to Mexico next week. However, don’t count out the 10-meter synchro team of Thomas Finchum and Nick McCrory just yet. They took the silver medal at the previous World Series stop in China, placing behind the team of Lin Yue/Huo Liang (CHN).

Host team Britain’s Tom Daley will be tested with his new synchro partner Max Brick as this is their first competition diving together. More on the controversy surrounding the line-up change in this previous post.

FINA Press Release: As expected, China dominated the second leg of the 2009 FINA Diving World Series, held in Changzhou (CHN) on March 27-28, by conquering seven out of the eight titles on offer. The only non-local victory went to Australia’s Sharleen Stratton in the women’s 3m springboard, who took the best possible advantage of the non-qualification of favourite Minxia Wu (CHN) for the final and the shaky performance of the second Chinese diver in the event, Zi He.

In Changzhou, the remaining seven finals were clearly won by the local champions, who managed the 1-2 in the men’s 3m springboard and 10m platform and in the women’s 10m platform. Like in the first meet of these series in Doha (March 21-22), the Chinese divers also triumphed comfortably in the synchronised events.

View the full Press Release from FINA.

In USA Diving news, the 10-meter synchro team of Thomas Finchum and Nick McCrory took the silver medal this past weekend. Though it was their first time competing together in synchronized diving, Finchum and McCrory trailed only the 2008 Olympic gold medalists, Huo Liang and Lin Yue of China, after the final dive.

The new USA Diving High Performance Director, Steve Foley, recommended McCrory as a replacement synchro partner in David Boudia’s absense. Boudia was preoccupied representing Purdue University at the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships, where he broke national records in both the 3-meter and platform events.

According to USADiving.org, McCrory and Finchum will continue diving as synchro partners in Great Britain next month. However, Boudia and Finchum will reunite for the final stop on the World Series circuit in Mexico on April 24th-25th.

Four divers will represent the United States at the FINA Diving World Series in Changzhou, China, on March 27-28.

2008 Olympians Kelci Bryant (Chatham, Ill./Indianapolis, Ind.) and Ariel Rittenhouse (Santa Cruz, Calif./Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.) will compete in women’s synchronized 3-meter, and 2008 Olympian Thomas Finchum (Indianapolis, Ind.) will pair with Nick McCrory (Chapel Hill, N.C.) in both synchronized 3-meter and synchronized 10-meter.

The top finishers from the 2008 Olympic Games were invited to participate in the World Series. Bryant and Rittenhouse were fourth in 3-meter synchro at the 2008 Games. Finchum finished fifth in 10-meter synchro in Beijing with long-time partner David Boudia, who is now a freshman at Purdue University and unable to attend this leg of the World Series as it coincides with the NCAA Championships.

New USA Diving high performance director Steve Foley recommended Finchum pair with McCrory following a synchronized diving assessment camp in Columbus, Ohio, last month. Finchum and McCrory are among the top three platform divers in the country and have a similar list of dives.

The U.S. will also participate in World Series meets in Great Britain and Mexico next month.

Press Release by Jennifer Lowery of USA Diving via USOCPressBox.org

Featuring America’s best divers, USA Diving is the national governing body for the sport of diving. Headquartered in Indianapolis, USA Diving offers diversified programs geared toward the broadest number of diving enthusiasts, from the novice to the world champion. USA Diving conducts approximately 40 regional and national events annually and is responsible for training and selecting teams that represent the United States at international events such as the Olympic Games, World Championships and World Cup.

Nine divers have been selected to the 2009 FINA World Championships Team.

The team members were hand-picked following a four-day selection camp held at Ohio State University. Although the camp included a meet format, results from the meet did not guarantee a spot on the team. Synchronized teams will be selected in May.

Six former Olympians were among the divers chosen. Troy Dumais will dive men’s 3-meter. Chris Colwill will join Dumais on 3-meter and will also compete 1-meter. Christina Loukas will dive 1-meter and 3-meter, and Ariel Rittenhouse will join Loukas on women’s 3-meter. Haley Ishimatsu and David Boudia were chosen for 10-meter.

Joining the Olympians, 17 year old Nick McCrory will also compete 10-meter in Rome. Brittany Viola was selected for 1-meter and 10-meter. Terry Horner rounds out the team with a spot along side Chris Colwill on 1-meter.

The World Championships team members will be required to demonstrate competitive readiness at the 2009 AT&T; USA Diving Grand Prix in Fort Lauderdale May 7-9, after which the synchronized teams for the World Championships will be finalized.

>>View original article on usadiving.org.
>>View related articles.

Source: USA Diving

DiveMeet.com has released some early results from the “meet” associated with the U.S. World Diving Team Selection Camp. As a reminder, I put “meet” in quotes, because the winner of the events does not automatically receive a spot on the World Team. The format is being used to evaluate the divers’ consistency across several lists, performance (of course), as well as degree of difficulty.

There are some ups and downs to this format. As far as our World Team selection is concerned, we are more likely to get the best, most consistent divers to represent our country. On the other hand, this format makes it much more difficult for an up-and-coming athlete to break into the international scene. In swimming, where team selection is made by time, athletes have an opportunity to make the team by having a single great meet or swim. The down side? If athletes are shaved and tapered to qualify for the team, there’s no guarantee they will be in the same shape for the actual championships.

Highlights:
Christina Loukas, from Indiana University, was in the top 3 for all three 1m lists.
David Boudia, from Purdue University, had the high score for all 4 rounds of men’s 3m with 477.95 coming in the 3rd round.
Ariel Rittenhouse (Trojan Dive Club), and Christina Loukas traded off 1st and 2nd place performances in 3 straight rounds of women’s 3m.
Christopher Colwill, from Georgia Diving Club, was clearly dominant on men’s 1m, winning 2 of the 3 rounds and getting 2nd in the other.
Haley Ishimatsu (age 16, from Trojan Dive Club) won both rounds of women’s platform, while Nick McCrory and Thomas Finchum showed great consistency by staying in the top 3 for both platform lists.

>>More articles in Diving.
>>Diving World Team selection procedures.

Source: DiveMeet.com