MONTREAL - Alexandre Despatie of Laval, Que., won two gold medals Friday at the CAMO International Invitation diving competition.
Despatie led Canada to a medal sweep in the three-metre solo competition and added a win in synchronized three-metre with partner Arturo Miranda of Pointe-Claire, Que.
In the individual three-metre, Despatie dominated the competition with 495.20 points in the final . He received one perfect 10 on his third dive, a reverse three and a half.
Eric Sehn of Edmonton was second at 458.45 and Reuben Ross of Pointe-Claire, Que., third with a personal best 451.50. Francois Imbeau-Dulac of Montreal was eighth.
''I didn't have a great prelims but I was happy with how I brought it up a notch in the final,'' said Despatie, the Olympic silver medallist in the event. ''The biggest adjustment I made from prelims was being more consistent and more focused. It was a long morning and I think I lost my concentration for a bit. But overall, for this time of year, it's a strong performance.''
The competition is also a selection meet for the FINA World Cup next February and Despatie and Ross grabbed the two available spots in the event for the best combined scores from the preliminaries and final.
''It felt great,'' said Ross. ''It was exciting. I knew it was going to be close for that second spot on the team. I just focused on what I had to do and took what I learned from practice and put it together in the meet.
''I'm mostly pleased with my consistency. I didn't miss anything.''
In three-metre synchro, Despatie and Miranda took the gold at 422.76 in the 10-team field. The world championship silver medallists registered 9.0's on four of their six dives in the final.
''It was a really good performance,'' said Miranda. ''We were feeling really tired but we pushed through it and it paid off in the end. Right now we're just training as hard as we can to make our individual dives better.''