Silver medal bonus

Jamaica's Olympics-bound diver Yona Knight-Wisdom says winning the 3m springboard silver medal at the FINA Diving World Cup in Rio de Janieri, Brazil, was a welcomed bonus, after his historic qualification to the Olympic Games.

Knight-Wisdom scored 427.40 points in Monday's semi-final to finish 11th in the 18-man field before surprising the competition in the medal round of the competition, which was being used as a Rio 2016 test event at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre.

The 20-year-old British-born diver pointed to his approach in the later rounds, noting that he was much more relaxed going into the semi-finals and final after already meeting his main objective of becoming Jamaica's first Olympic qualifier in a diving event.

"It (silver medal) means the world to me, the focus was to qualify for the Olympic Games. I never expected that to translate to a World silver medal so I'm really happy about that," Knight-Wisdom told The Gleaner from Brazil yesterday.

Knight-Wisdom returned to log 459.25 points in the final, to finish behind gold medal winner Rommel Pacheco (Mexico), who scored 504.40 points with the United States' Kristian Ipsen tallying 362.05 points.

improvement

Still, the youngster isn't getting ahead of himself and is expecting the competition to be far tougher when the Olympics begin. He is, however, also hoping for improvement as he prepares to take on the world in Rio.

"At the Olympic Games everyone will be at their peak and it will of course feature other divers that didn't compete in this event so it will probably be a harder competition but I am also looking forward to getting even better as well," Knight-Wisdom said.

The Leeds-born diver booked his spot at the Olympic Games after finishing 17th in the preliminary round with a score of 397.90 points.