Paris 2024: Cassiel Rousseau finishes fourth in the 10m platform dive
Winning last year’s World Championships put extra pressure on Cassiel Rousseau heading into Paris but the Aussie diving star is down talking his medal hopes despite reaching semi-finals.
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It would have been a fairytale winning a medal at the Paris Olympics, after his grandfather won gold in Melbourne, but it wasn’t to be for Cassiel Rousseau.
It was so close, one missed dive the difference between finishing fourth and going home with a bronze medal.
But right now Rousseau doesn’t mind.
The score was a PB for the year and a huge improvement on his 8th place finish at Tokyo three years ago.
He said when the adrenaline wears off and he lands back in Australia missing a medal by 16.35 points, might be a “hard pill to swallow”.
Going in, the 2023 world champion, said he had expected to finish in the 6th to 12th bracket. Nowhere near the 4th he achieved.
Rousseau, the only male platform diver training in Queensland and a cut above our other homegrown athletes has struggled to find motivation to train this year.
He packed his bag and travelled to Japan to train with 17-year-old Rikuto Tamai who finished with a silver medal.
“I’ve had a couple of mental issues that started at the start of this year, but I don’t want to make any excuses it is what it is,” he said.
“I just wasn’t really physically fit. My motivation was a little bit down but it kind of picked up as I started traveling.
“It’s an incredible improvement to come from eighth to fourth and be just a couple of points behind third in three years, I’m very happy with that performance.”
The 23-year-old said he had only added some of the dives to his list 12 months ago, dives his competitors have been doing for a decade.
He didn’t commit himself to LA but did say he would stick with the sport for as long as he was enjoying it.
His first step is a holiday- to hit reset after three years of intense training.
“Just to get my mind off diving,” he said.
“It’s been a very tough or very long three years of hard work and this year hasn’t really been the best year for me in terms of diving and to come out and pretty much just do my best this year. I think those were kind of PBS this year. I’m just incredibly happy to put that out there.”
China’s Cao Yuan, at his fourth Olympics, was near perfection - it was no surprise when he won his fourth Olympic gold medal.
The bronze went to Great Britain’s Noah Williams.
ROUSSEAU PLAYS DOWN MEDAL TALK
Coming into the Olympics as a reigning World Champion was always going to put extra pressure on Cassiel Rousseau but the Brisbane diver isn’t buying into the hype.
Just two years later at the 2023 World Championships he finished first - the first Australian man to achieve the impressive feat.
He cruised into the semi-final at the Paris Aquatic Centre on Friday night - delivering six very consistent dives.
In fact they were almost all the same score: 76.5, 75.6, 72, 75.6, 72, 81.40.
That had been his goal.
“You just have to track along and do what you have to do, nothing too stupid, so I’m happy with the performance,” Rousseau said.
Talking afterwards Rousseau said he wasn’t at his peak and wouldn’t be scoring any 10s these Games.
But his final dive contradicted that - almost like a warning to his rivals - I’ve got more to give.
The incredibly calm and cool Rousseau talked down his prospects of taking home a medal, saying he was just grateful to be here, in the city where his mum grew up.
“I never looked to get a medal in Japan last year, it was probably my peak performance and I’m not really at my peak at the moment,” Rousseau said.
“But anything can happen, especially in diving as well.”
It is an incredibly tough field. Chinese diver Yang Hao, who dropped his armstand in the second dive taking a heavy hit from the judges, finished with a near perfect dive scoring 99.90.
Rousseau’s Japanese training partner also performed well fetching 91.80 on sixth dive to go into the semi-final ranked second.
But scoreboards are wiped clean for the semi-final and as Rousseau said “anything can happen at an Olympics”.
The Brisbanite isn’t the only Australian diver through to the next round - Olympic debutant Jaxon Bowshire progressed in 14th place.
Bowshire, who only had his first international competition earlier this year, said after his first dive the nerves were replaced with adrenaline.
His aim is to make the final.
Both divers will be back in action for the semi-final at 6pm (AEST) Saturday. The final, which the top 12 divers will contest, will start at 11pm (AEST).
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Originally published as Paris 2024: Cassiel Rousseau finishes fourth in the 10m platform dive
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