IRISH TEENAGER JAKE Passmore missed out on a place in the men’s 3m springboard diving semi-final by less than three points on Tuesday morning.
With only the top 18 progressing to Wednesday’s semi-finals, Passmore’s final tally of 360.90 points saw him finish in 21st place overall — just behind Jonathan Ruvalcaba of the Dominican Republic in the final qualification place on 363.15.
Passmore, 19, got off to a solid start and the fourth of his six dives — a forward 2 1/2 somersaults with two twists in a pike position — moved him up to 11th place overall ahead of the final two rounds.
A disappointing score of 49.50 on his fifth dive — a reverse 2 1/2 somersaults in a pike position, rated one of the easiest of his card — saw him slip back into 17th place ahead of the final round.
Passmore had saved his highest difficulty dive for last — a forward 4 1/2 somersaults in a tuck position — but his score of 49.40 saw him slip just outside the qualification mark.
Speaking afterwards, he acknowledged there were “mixed emotions”.
“Could have been better, could have been worse, but I can’t really expect anything from my first Olympics,” he said. “Hopefully I’ve got a few more in the tank.
“It didn’t feel like it was going great, but it didn’t feel like it was going bad, just steady which is all I can really ask for.”
tough luck on not making the final, overall a good more than respectable showing. If as stated elsewhere he’s off studying in the States then he’ll surely have more constant training and competitions to better himself. Good luck to him