Irish teenager Jake Passmore narrowly misses out on diving semi-final on Olympic debut

06 Aug 2024, 10:41 by Niall Kelly · The42

IRISH TEENAGER JAKE Passmore missed out on a place in the men’s 3m springboard diving semi-final by less than three points on Tuesday morning.

With only the top 18 progressing to Wednesday’s semi-finals, Passmore’s final tally of 360.90 points saw him finish in 21st place overall — just behind Jonathan Ruvalcaba of the Dominican Republic in the final qualification place on 363.15.

Passmore, 19, got off to a solid start and the fourth of his six dives — a forward 2 1/2 somersaults with two twists in a pike position — moved him up to 11th place overall ahead of the final two rounds.

A disappointing score of 49.50 on his fifth dive — a reverse 2 1/2 somersaults in a pike position, rated one of the easiest of his card — saw him slip back into 17th place ahead of the final round.

Passmore had saved his highest difficulty dive for last — a forward 4 1/2 somersaults in a tuck position — but his score of 49.40 saw him slip just outside the qualification mark.

Speaking afterwards, he acknowledged there were “mixed emotions”.

“Could have been better, could have been worse, but I can’t really expect anything from my first Olympics,” he said. “Hopefully I’ve got a few more in the tank.

“It didn’t feel like it was going great, but it didn’t feel like it was going bad, just steady which is all I can really ask for.”