The South Korean diving tandem of Kim Yeong-nam and Woo Ha-ram advanced to the final in the men's synchronized 3m springboard at the FINA World Championships on Saturday.
Kim and Woo scored a combined 376.47 points to rank fifth after six attempts at Nambu University Municipal Aquatics Center in Gwangju, 330 kilometers south of Seoul, well inside the cutoff line of the top 12 for the final.
Xie Siyi and Cao Yuan of China won the preliminary with 447.18 points. They won the silver medal in this event at the previous worlds two years ago.
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(Yonhap) |
The final is scheduled to begin at 8:45 p.m. Saturday.
Kim and Woo will try to set a new career high at the worlds.
Their previous best finish in a synchronized event is seventh in the 10m platform, set in 2015 and matched two years later. They placed eighth in the 3m springboard at the last world championships in 2017.
Woo has also advanced to the final in the 1m springboard for Sunday.
In synchronized diving, there are 11 judges: six for the execution of the two divers and five for the divers' synchronization. Only the two median scores in execution for each diver and the middle three scores for synchronization are considered, and the sum of these five scores is multiplied by the degree of difficulty.
Kim and Woo began with relatively easy dives with degree of difficulty points of 2.0 in their first two attempts and finished with a dive worth 3.8 in the difficulty score.
They were tied for fourth after the first two dives and climbed to second place after the third attempt. Woo was shaky in his entry in the fourth attempt and only got a 4.0 in his execution points, compared to 7.0 for Kim, and the duo slipped to fourth place through four dives.
They bounced back with a strong fifth dive, a reverse three and a half somersaults in the tuck position, and moved back up to third place.
In the final dive, Kim and Woo solidly executed their difficult forward four and a half somersaults in the tuck position to clinch their spot in the final.
Woo also settled for a 4.0 for his execution in the final dive, but he said afterward he'd already put his miscues behind.
"Preliminary scores aren't important, and I don't worry about mistakes in this stage," he said. "I just have to make sure I won't repeat the same error in the final."
Kim also looked on the bright side, saying he was pleased with the synchronization scores.
"This was a warmup for us, and I think we'll feel more comfortable in the evening for the final," Kim added. (Yonhap)
