Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – Murphy Bromberg (Bexley, Ohio) won her women’s platform semifinal to earn a spot in Sunday’s 10-meter finals and Olympic bronze medalist Troy Dumais (Ventura, Calif./Austin, Texas) secured a berth in the 3-meter finals with their performances Friday at the AT&T USA Diving Grand Prix.
The 17-year-old Bromberg scored 341.30 points to win the women’s 10-meter semifinal B ahead of China’s Jie Lian (330.50) and Japan’s Fuka Tatsumi (300.45), who also advanced.
Bromberg, a 2010 junior world bronze medalist, was competing in just her second senior international meet.
“I was just trying to dive. I’ve always struggled with being really nervous and not performing in meets like I do in practice, so I was just trying to calm down,” said Bromberg, who scored 84.15 points on her back 3 ½ tuck in the second round of the semis.
China’s Huang Xiaohui, Ukraine’s Juliia Prokopchuk and Germany’s Maria Kurjo qualified for the finals out of semifinal A.
Katrina Young (Shoreline, Wash.) also advanced to the semis, scoring 232.25 points for 11th overall.
Tori Lamp (Knoxville, Tenn.) was the 12th in the women’s platform prelims but could not advance as only two divers per country can compete in the semis and Bromberg and Young scored higher in the prelims. Lamp finished with 282.45 points, and Gracia Leydon Mahoney (Newton, Mass.) scored 240.10 points to place 21st.
Dumais scored 468.90 points for second place in the men’s 3-meter semifinal B to advance to the finals along with China’s He Chao (508.70) and Germany’s Sascha Klein (447.30).
“I was steady today, but I left some points on the board. I still haven’t mastered everything,” said Dumais. “Today was one more step. As I get older, it gets harder, but I’m still pushing myself to be better and pushing our younger divers to be better.”
Mexico’s Rommel Pacheco and Jahir Ocampo were first and second in semifinal A, and China’s Sun Zhiyi also advanced to the finals.
Troy’s brother Dwight Dumais (Ventura, Calif./Austin, Texas) just missed a spot in the semis after placing 13th with 383.65 points in the preliminaries. Aaron Fleshner (Spring, Texas) was 17th at 375.05, and Zac Nees (Hatfield, Pa.) scored 272.50 for 30th.
The AT&T USA Diving Grand Prix continues through Sunday, May 12. Saturday’s competition begins at 11 a.m. and features finals in women’s synchronized 10-meter, men’s synchronized 3-meter, women’s 3-meter and men’s 10-meter.
