Passmore Makes History with first World Level Diving Medal for Ireland
Jake Passmore of Ireland made history for the second time this year, winning a first ever World level diving medal for Ireland, claiming silver at the 2022 World Junior Diving Championships last night in Montreal, Canada.
Passmore qualified for the Boys 1M Springboard Final following an impressive performance in the preliminary round, scoring a total of 431.65 point. Passmore finished in third place out of 41 divers after ten rounds of diving.
Although finishing third in the preliminaries, he started the final in tenth place. At junior level, competitors first five dives in the preliminary round are required dives and their scores are carried into the final. The second five dives in preliminaries are optional and competitors can then choose to repeat these, or to change them in the final.
The European junior bronze medallist got his final underway with a tricky dive, scoring an excellent 61.10 points (405C), a round that would eventually be his highest score of the final. Passmore continued his excellent form scoring 55.50, 44.55, 58.50 in his following three dives. Going into the final round of the night, Passmore sat in fourth place, just .90 points behind American, Max Fowler who was in third. The Leeds based dived scored 57.60 points, leaving him with a score of 453.60 total points, enough to take the silver medal, creating history for Ireland while doing so.
Passmore finished just 16.1 points behind Italian, Matteo Santoro (469.70) and ahead of Max Fowler (451.15) and Rafael Fogaca of Brazil (448.90).
Speaking following the historic medal win, Swim Ireland Head of Diving, Damian Ball said: “This was another strong performance from Jake, he is an excellent 1m springboard diver and he’s now added a World Junior silver medal to the European Junior bronze medal he collected earlier in the year. To maintain a consistent high standard of diving throughout 5.5hrs of competitive diving in one day, really demonstrates Jake’s resilience and mental toughness. We are all delighted that he’s made history by winning Ireland’s first ever diving medal at a World Junior Championships. Jake and his coach Marc Holdsworth will now turn their attention to the 3m Springboard event taking place on Thursday”.
Passmore will return to action tomorrow at 9am (Irish) for the 3m Springboard preliminaries, with the final getting underway at 21:20.
