Kim Soo-ji’s brilliant acting
Suji Kim is performing in the women’s 3m springboard preliminaries at the 2024 World Championships Diving held at the Hamad Aquatic Center in Doha, Qatar, on the 8th.
Kim Su-ji (25, Ulsan Metropolitan City Hall) succeeded in advancing to the semifinals for the third time in a row in the women’s 3m springboard diving event at the World Aquatics Championships.
Kim Su-ji ranked 15th out of 53 people with a total of 257.55 points in the first to fifth periods in the 2024 World Championships Diving Women’s 3m Springboard Preliminary held at the Hamad Aquatic Center in Doha, Qatar on the 8th, and secured a spot in the semifinals, which is among 18 people.
Suji Kim reached the semifinals of this event in Doha, following Budapest (16th) in 2022 and Fukuoka (16th) in 2023.
In the semifinals held on the afternoon of the 9th, Korean time, Kim Su-ji aims to advance to the 3m springboard finals for the first time (12 people).
By advancing to the semifinals, Kim Su-ji is in a better position to secure a spot at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Securing a spot at the Paris Olympics is easier than advancing to the finals.
The women’s 3m springboard is an official Olympic event.
In diving, qualifications for the Paris Olympics are distributed to the National Olympic Committee (NOC) rather than to individual athletes.
The International Aquatics Federation has decided that the method of distributing qualifications for the Paris Olympics for the individual diving event will be ’12 tickets for the 2023 Fukuoka World Championships, a maximum of 5 tickets for each continental championship, and 12 tickets for the 2024 Doha World Championships.’
Each country can obtain a maximum of two tickets to the Paris Olympics in the women’s 3m springboard diving event.
China, Italy, and the United States have already secured two qualification spots for the women’s 3m springboard Paris Olympics at the Fukuoka Games, so they cannot add additional Olympic spots at this competition.
Athletes from China (2), Italy (2), and the United States (1), who have already secured Olympic qualification, also advanced to the semifinals of this Doha competition.
Accordingly, Kim Su-ji will secure the right to participate in the Paris Olympics if she ranks in the top 12 out of 13 players excluding Chinese, Italian, and American players.
Harim Kwon’s springboard performance
Despite the negative news of an injury that tore the cartilage in her left knee last December, Kim Su-ji faithfully prepared for this competition in order to ‘obtain a qualification to participate in the Paris Olympics.’
Before leaving for Doha, Kim Su-ji met with Yonhap News and said, “The biggest goal of the Doha Games is to advance to the 3m springboard finals and qualify for the Paris Olympics.” “For me, who enjoys participating in international competitions, the Olympics are the biggest stimulus. 2012 “Participating in a third Olympics after London and Tokyo in 2021 is a very important goal for my career,” he said.
By successfully passing the preliminaries, Suji Kim took one step closer to achieving her goal.
In the preliminaries on this day, Madison Kinney (27, Australia) took first place with 304.45 points.
Kinney, who ranked 3rd in the 3m springboard at the 2019 Gwangju Games, produced an upset by passing the preliminaries in 1st place, beating the champion of this event in 2022 and 2023, Chen Yiwen (24, China). Cheon Yi-won’s score was 297.75 points.
Yani Chang (22, China), who took second place in the Fukuoka competition, finished fourth in the preliminary round with 290.90 points, behind Sarah Bacon (27, USA) with 297.45 points.
Kwon Ha-rim (24, Gangwon Provincial Office) failed to advance to the semifinals with 204.95 points and 43rd place. 섯다