Women's diving platform semifinals: Delaney Schnell misses out on finals as China continues to dominate

Diving - Credit: USA Today

Diving – Credit: USA Today

After narrowly making it into the semifinals of the women’s diving 10m platform competition earlier this morning, U.S. diver Delaney Schnell moved up four spots in the semis, but didn’t move enough to earn a berth into the finals. Schnell finishes her Paris Olympics in 14th place.

It was one dive in both the prelims and semis that got the best of Schnell – a backward 3 ½ that scored just 31.35 points on her third dive of the second round.

On her fourth dive, a forward 3 ½ somersault, Schnell received all sevens for a score of 63, less than she scored on the same dive in prelims.

Needing a big score on her final dive to make up ground, Schnell performed an inward 3 ½, but a big splash into the water got her just 52.8 points, her second worst scoring dive of the round. She finished with 271.95 points, missing the finals by 6.55 points.

Schnell reached the finals and finished fifth in the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, and finished sixth in the synchro platform event last week with diving partner Jessica Parratto. She told reporters before Paris she plans to take at least a year off from diving to get married and begin work as a speech pathologist.

The individual platform event on Monday was dominated by China’s Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi for both the prelims and semis. After the prelims, Quan was in first 40 points over Chen, and Chen was in second by 57 points over Great Britain’s Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix.

SEE MORE: Women’s platform diving: Delaney Schnell narrowly moves on to semis, China divers top standings

The semis were closer, but finished in the same order. Quan finished with 421.05 points, exactly 18 better than Chen. Spendolini-Sirieix finished third in the semis with a score of 367.00.

Quan was only up by four through three rounds. On her fourth dive she performed a backwards 3 ½ somersault that scored 90.75, the only dive of the day to score better than 90.

Chen’s third dive scored 87.45 points. No one else in the field had a single dive score better than 78.

When asked on the broadcast if anyone in the field could challenge China’s excellence, tv analyst Laura Wilkinson said, “I think they would have to dive completely out of their minds at this point.”

“Quan Hongchan is on a whole other level, and her teammate Chen Yuxi is also phenomenal,” Wilkinson added.

The Chinese duo have already won gold in Paris in the synchro platform event. Quan is the defending Olympic gold medalists in the individual platform.

North Korea’s Kim Mi-Rae (322.40) finished fourth in the semifinals, followed by Mexico’s Alejandra Orozco (312.00). The top 12 divers moving on to the finals are listed below.

FULL RESULTS

The finals of the women’s platform will be held on Tuesday at 9 a.m. ET. No scores from Monday will carry over into the finals.

SEE MORE: China perfectly in-sync in dominant women’s synchro platform gold medal performance; U.S. finishes sixth