BEIJING – USA’s Christina Loukas (Riverwoods, Ill.) and Nancilea Foster (Conroe, Texas) placed eighth and 11th, respectively, in the women’s 3-meter springboard preliminaries Friday to advance to the semifinals.

The top 18 finishers move on to the semis, which are set for 8 p.m. Saturday at the National Aquatics Center.

Loukas totaled 312.60 points, highlighted by a 70.50-point effort on her back 2 ½ pike in the third round.

Foster finished with 300.15 points after climbing her way back into contention. She missed her first dive, scoring only 43.50 points on her back 2 ½ to stand in 27 th place after round one, but was tied for 17 th after the second round and sat in 11 th place after the fourth and fifth rounds. She earned 70.50 points on her final dive, a reverse 2 ½ pike. China’s Guo Jingjing, the 2004 gold medalist on 3-meter, led the preliminaries with 373.90 points, followed by Russia’s Julia Pakhalina, the 2004 bronze medalist, at 358.15 and Canada’s Blythe Hartley at 350.60. Athens silver medalist Wu Minxia of China finished the prelims in fourth place with 349.45 points.

Scores from the preliminaries do not carry over; divers will start at zero and dive in reverse order of their finish in the prelims.

More USA Diving News