July 19, 2011

SHANGHAI, China-- Incoming freshman diving Kristian Ipsen (Clayton, Calif.) along with his partner, Troy Dumais, missed out on a medal by nine points at the world championships in China, finishing fourth with 429.06 points early Tuesday morning U.S. time.

It was a busy couple of days for the Bay Area native, as he was also awarded his sixth national title, retroactively to a Harrison Jones suspension from February and will be one of seven Cardinal-affiliated divers set to compete at the 2011 AT&T U.S. National Championships at UCLA starting on August 9.  

Joining Ipsen at nationals in three weeks will be  2011 Pac-10 Freshmen of the Year, Stephanie Phipps and Dhruv Tyagi along with fellow freshman Noah Garcia and graduate Dwight Dumais, and incoming freshman Connor Kuremsky, who all qualified for nationals on Sunday.

The Bay Area diver was within one round of medaling in China. Ipsen and the eldest Dumais, a graduate of Texas, were in second place with one round to go, before Mexico and Russia both passed them with scores of 82.62 for third place Mexico and 100.32 for second place Russia. Dumais and Ipsen scored a 73.26 on a reverse 2 ½ and 1 ½ twist, finishing behind China (463.98), Russia (451.89) and Mexico (437.61).

The duo scored a 410.64 for fourth place in the preliminary rounds. The elder, Dumais, took the blame for missing the medal.  “Finals is always a fight, and I missed my last dive. I’m sorry I had to bring my teammate down with me, because he did a great job.”

Ipsen was 31st in the prelims of the three-meter later in the week. Ipsen's sixth national title came after Jones tested positive for a banned substance, his second offense, giving Ipsen the three-meter title at the 2011 Winter National Championships.

At national qualifying across the country, Dwight Dumais had the highest point total at the Zone C national qualifiers with 56.00 points, after a win in the one-meter (383.35), a second place showing in the three-meter (396.15). Tyagi was ninth in the Zone A qualifiers with 30.00 points after finishing fifth in the three-meter (358.20) and ninth in the one-meter (291.05). Fellow classmate, Garcia, was 13th at the Zone C's with 29.00 points after being sixth in the three-meter (345.00) and ninth in the one-meter (287.15).

Pittsburgh's Kuremsky, finished sixth in the one-meter (310.10) and 10th in the three-meter (338.85) at the Zone A's

Phipps finished third at the Zone D national qualifiers in the one-meter (241.25) and sixth in the three-meter (240.95). Phipps finished sixth overall in points (35.00).

Four men and two Stanford women, Phipps and synchronized diver, Cassidy Krug, are expected to be at UCLA from August 9 to 14 for Nationals. It is the most divers on the men's side in school history.