Rio 2016 – Day 8 Diving
Women’s 10m diving today. The 2007 built, but slightly crumbling, Maria Lenk Aquatics Center has already hosted some of the earlier water polo and is running with the synchronized swimming as well, get your nose pegs ready for that, but diving is the arena’s main pull with just the men and women’s 10m platform left.
28 women, some young enough looking to be in primary school, took part in qualification today each committing 5 dives, each one different and the 18 divers with the highest score progressed to tomorrow morning’s semi-final. The best 12 then take part in the final later tomorrow.
There was quite a bit of British interest today, and plenty of Union Jacks floating around the stadium. The Brits have the most divers (11) in Rio except for China, who have absolutely dominated the medals thus far. Tonia Crouch and Sarah Barrow competed for Britain, both 27 and both from Plymouth, which I found intersting. However Barrow did not make the cut but Crouch finished today in 5th and will hopefully be one of the contenders for a bronze, because believe me, and I am no diving expert, no I am not, but nobody is going to get near the two Chinese girls Si Yajie and Qian Ren.
Yajie finished way above the field and her and Ren’s consistency could not be matched by anybody else. Yajie is 17 and Ren 15 and I will be flabbergasted if these two are not one and two.
Our seats weren’t great but oddly most of the crowd was away from the action as media, team mates, dignitaries and assorted hangers on got the best seats. Irishman Patrick Hickey’s seat was empty I noticed!
But we were under cover, the beer was cold and they kept the action moving fast paced and we enjoyed it. Very serene, very artistic but I always struggle with sports where a combination of judges mark you against a potential reality in their own mind. Not like scoring a goal is it?
Chicago Addick 
We took one look at the two Chinese girls diving and knew they would win! Are there many empty seats CA? It doesn’t look good from the TV. GB hockey girls last night gave a very British backs to the wall performance that brought a tear to my eye, but again looked like there were a lot of empty seats. Saw the diving last week, and with the green water and rain it reminded me of Dartford open air swimming pool from the 70s..
Pembury Addick
Yes. A lot of empty seats. And interestingly after being turned down for closing ceremony tickets originally I got an email on Friday offering me tickets at 30% or original pricing. $95 cheapest ticket.
The has been all kind of reasons given about poor ticket sales, but personally I think it was greed and an arrogant miscalculation of the pricing of them by the IOC.
Shame, because some of the world’s greatest athletes performed in front of banks of empty seats.