Wayward Wu through to semis
21/08/2008 12:09 AM
Australian duo Melissa Wu and Alexandra Croak have safely negotiated their way through the preliminary round of the women's 10m platform diving to progress to Thursday's semi-finals.
While Chinese divers Ruolin Chen and Xin Wang dominated the qualifying round with the two best overall totals, Wu and Croak did enough to make it into the top 18.
Croak, who represented Australia in gymnastics at the Sydney Olympics eight years ago, produced the fourth best score, while Wu was eighth.
"I'm happy with tonight," Croak said. "I'll get a good night's rest tonight. I'll just keep diving how I’ve been diving. I’m prepared for it."
Wu, who is regarded as an outside shot at winning a medal, could have finished even higher in the rankings if not for a poor fourth dive, where she could only manage a score of 37.95.
The teenager bungled her backward three-and-a-half somersault in the tuck position, but recovered well with her final dive to score 86.70.
"It's a tough competition. It's the Olympics," Wu said. "It came down to a technical error. I have to fix that if I'm to continue. I was also really nervous."
Both Australians will compete in the semi-finals on Thursday evening, with the leading 12 divers progressing to the final later on that night.