Pamela Ware wins 3m springboard bronze at World Aquatics Championships
Ten years after she won bronze in her debut, Pamela Ware has returned to the podium at the World Aquatics Championships in the women’s 3m springboard.
On Friday, Ware captured her second career world championship bronze medal in the event. She totaled 332.00 points in the final to finish behind a pair of Chinese divers. Chen Yiwen successfully defended her 3m springboard world title by scoring 359.50 points. Her teammate Chang Yani took the silver with 341.50 points.
Ware was incredibly consistent throughout the five rounds of the final. She scored 67.50 on her four dives that had a 3.0 degree of difficulty. She only briefly dropped out of podium position after her most difficult dive, a forward three-and-a-half somersaults in pike, in the second round.
The medal comes after a tough couple of years for Ware. In her second Olympic appearance at Tokyo 2020, she didn’t even advance to the final of the 3m springboard after completely missing her last dive of the semifinal, receiving no score for it. As she told CBC’s Devin Heroux just after receiving her bronze medal, “I was traumatized by it for about a year. I wanted to quit but I didn’t want to quit.”
Ware did not compete at last year’s World Aquatics Championships. This past May, she made her return to elite international competition at the World Aquatics Diving World Cup in Montreal where she claimed the silver medal in the 3m springboard. Upon arrival in Fukuoka, Japan for this year’s worlds, Ware showed she had the form the challenge for the podium when she placed fourth in the 1m springboard event.
The 30-year-old Ware now has four career world championship medals. In addition the two she has won solo, she earned 3m synchro silver in 2015 and 3m synchro bronze in 2013, both with the now-retired Jennifer Abel.
By advancing to the 12-woman final, Ware qualified an Olympic quota spot in the event for Canada at Paris 2024. That is one of three Olympic quotas Canada has secured in diving at these World Aquatics Championships. Caeli McKay‘s appearance in the women’s 10m platform final — in which she won the bronze medal — qualified the first spot. On Friday, Nathan Zsombor-Murray placed ninth in the men’s 10m platform semifinals, also clinching a quota spot for Canada in that event. He will dive in the final on Saturday, the last day of diving competition in Fukuoka before the swimmers take over the pool.
