Ireland’s Jake Passmore has made history for the second time this year, winning a first ever World level diving medal for the country by claiming silver at the 2022 World Junior Diving Championships in Montreal, Canada on Tuesday night.
Passmore qualified for the boys’ 1m springboard final following an impressive performance in the preliminary round, scoring a total of 431.65 points to finish in third place out of 41 divers after 10 rounds of diving.
Although finishing third in the preliminaries, he started the final in 10th 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 under way 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, he sat in fourth place, just .90 points behind American Max Fowler in third. The Leeds-based diver scored 57.60 points, leaving him with a total of 453.60 points, enough to take the silver medal.
Passmore finished just 16.1 points behind Italian Matteo Santoro (469.70) and ahead of Fowler (451.15) and Rafael Fogaca of Brazil (448.90).
Speaking following the historic medal win, Swim Ireland dead 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 five and a half hours 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.”
Passmore will return to action on Thursday morning for the 3m springboard preliminaries.
