17 year-old WAIS diver Maddison Keeney has finished eighth in the FINA World Championship final of the 3m Synchro Springboard alongside her Australian teammate Sherilyse Gowlett.
Making her World Championships debut in Barcelona, Keeney combined with Queenslander Gowlett to qualify in fourth place for the women’s final following an impressive combination of dives from the fledgling pair.
Competing against top quality world class opponents, Keeney and Gowlett struggled to back up in Saturday evening’s final, but still showed enough class and verve to capture eighth place overall (279.03) out of the 12 combining athlete teams.
The gold medal was won by the Chinese pairing of Minxia Wu and Tingmao Shi – who were in a class of their own, recording a total score of 338.40. Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape were second for Italy with a score of 307.80, whilst bronze went to the Canadian duo of Jennifer Abel and amela Ware.
Keeney also threatened a shock result in the 1m springboard qualification, with the Perth tumbler leading the rankings after two dives. The Iris Deng (WAIS head diving coach) trained athlete adopted a high risk strategy for her first worlds campaign, combining daring difficulties with strict technical elements.
Although a missed execution on her third dive would cost Keeney progression through to Tuesday’s final (18th – 225.50), the 17 year-old was highly impressive on her first outing against such calibre, and remains one of Australia’s brightest prospects for the next Olympiad period to Rio 2016.
