Despatie dives for gold

Double Commonwealth champion Despatie, who far outscored his rivals in Monday's six-dive preliminary round, increased his aggregate total to 772.32 points with the five more basic dives of Tuesday's semi-final round which reduced the field from 18 to 12 for the evening's final.

The preliminary round scores are now dropped but the 19-year-old Canadian remains strong favourite for gold after the six-dive final of free-choice dives, even though he was marginally down in third place in the semi-final round, which featured five basic dives of low degrees of difficulty.

World three-metre silver medallist Peng Bo of China was second with an aggregate 751.62 and world champion Alexander Dobroskok of Russia third with 717.84 as the top three overall order remained unchanged from Monday.

Russia's Dmitry Sautin, former Olympic highboard champion and twice a springboard bronze medallist, moved up from sixth to fourth overall, increasing his aggregate to 706.44 and going into the final effectively first with 256.38 from his semi-final dives.

Peng takes 256.17 forward and Despatie 254.73.

Australia's Robert Newbery, whose wife Chantelle won the women's platform title on Sunday, qualified 10th, with chances slim of augmenting his Athens haul of two bronze medals in the synchronised three-metre and platform events.

The semi-final was the end of the line for 1999 European champion Tony Ally and fellow Briton Mark Shipman, who finished respectively 15th and 18th.