A delighted Riley McCormick has qualified for his first Olympic 10-metre platform final, performing the best dive of Saturdays last semi-final round to overtake 2008 Olympic champion Matthew Mitchamand place 12th overall. . In an extremely high-scoring 10m semi-final, McCormick finished off his six dives with a total of 495.60 points. That same score would have put him sixth in the Beijing Olympic final, four years ago. McCormick, who finished 16th in his 2008 Olympic debut, was also 16th after his first dive of the 2012 semis. He steadily moved up the ranks, however, and was in 13th place as he prepared for the final round of dives. The top-12 finishers would advance. The Victoria, B.C. natives last dive, a back 3.5 somersault with a high degree of difficulty of 3.6, has been McCormicks strongest at these Games. In Fridays preliminary round he performed it for scores of 8.0 (out of 10) and scored a personal-best 86.40 points to advance in 11th place. On Saturday, he performed it even better. There was no sign of the slight under-rotation that McCormick had to fight to save in Fridays attempt, just tight rotations and a beautiful rip entry - one with almost no splash - marked the Canadians last element of the morning. He scored straight scores of 9.0 to earn a single-dive score of 97.20. Only one diver, gold-medal favourite Qiu Bo, of China, was able to match McCormicks score during that final round. None of the 18 divers competing managed to better it. "Im very proud of myself," McCormick said. "Its been a long journey, we left (Canada) over a month ago and its been really tough." With one divers success, however, came another competitors heartbreak. Australias Mitcham, the only non-Chinese diver to pick up gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in front of a Beijing crowd four years ago, entered his second Olympic Games with an easier dive list after a torn abdominal muscle kept him out of action for much of 2011. He was in 11th place before he missed on his final dive of the London Games, scoring just 70.20 points. McCormick and Mexicos Ivan Navarro Garcia both overtook the 24-year-old Aussie in that sixth round, and following McCormicks performance Mitcham sat in the stands with his coach, eyes brimming with tears. McCormick is not considered a medal contender in this competition, although after the morning semi-final, his hopes are understandably high. "That would be a dream come true if I ever get a medal during the final," he said. He finished ninth at the most recent world championships in Shanghai with 444.50 points - 51.10 points fewer than he scored in Saturdays semis. Qiu was the unsurprising leader in Londons Aquatics Centre, with one dive - his fourth - earning 102.60 points toward a total of 563.55 by the end of the comeptition. His compatriot, Lin Yue , was second with 541.80 points. China was left devastated at their home Beijing 2008 Olympic Games when then 10-metre favourite Zhou Luxin finished second to Mitcham, falling out of the gold-medal spot in the final round of dives. The Chinese have already missed one top podium spot at these Games, with Russian Ilya Zakharov edging Chinas Qin Kai for gold in the 3m springboard four days ago. Chinas top rivals in the 10m are expected to be David Boudia, who narrowly missed qualifying for the 2012 Olympic semi-final but bounced back to place third on Saturday morning, Germans Sascha Klein and Martin Wolfram , and home-town favourite Tom Daley , of Plymouth, UK. Daley, 18, has been the face of the Games for Great Britain; he was thrust into the spotlight three years ago at the age of 15 when he became the youngest 10-metre platform world champion in the history of the event. The Briton finished fourth in the mens synchronized platform on Day 3 of the Games, and finished the individual semi-final in fourth place as well. "That was a lot better than yesterday," said Daley, who suffered a disastrous fifth dive in Fridays preliminaries and looked in danger of failing to qualify for the semis. "Thats the thing with diving, anything can happen, as youve seen with the Olympic champion not qualifying.""After knowing the disappointment from the synchro, I really wanted to prove a point. Last night was tough to get through all that competition, but Im happy and anything can happen tonight." Watch the mens 10-metre platform final on Saturday at 3:30pm et/12:30pm pt at CTVOlympics.ca. [url=http://www.lionsofficialteamstore.com/autographed-darius-slay-jersey-xd-18.... Slay Jersey . "Brook-lyn! Brook-lyn!" Those were the lyrics of a rocking return to major pro sports. "That gave me jitters, man. Chills," guard Joe Johnson said. "I know that these fans want the best for this team. . 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