Alexandre Despatie will try for a perfect ending to his Olympic career on Tuesday afternoon, competing in his eighth-straight Olympic final. The 27-year-old diver breathed a sigh of relief after his final dive, finishing eighth in the three-metre springboard semi-final. Less than two months ago, his very participation at a fourth Olympic Games was in doubt. During a training session in mid-June, Despatie hit his head on the board in practice. He suffered a mild concussion and a gash across his forehead that required stitches to close. "Its just amazing being here," the two-time Olympic silver medallist told CTVOlympics on Tuesday. "I was thinking about it through the competition. I shouldnt have, but as things were going well I was thinking, Im here. "And Im diving really well and Im in the final and I know usually these things are different, but now Im just really happy to be competing in my last Olympic final," he said. A day after he placed ninth in the preliminary round, Despatie either equalled or improved upon every dive to climb one place in the semi. He got off to a particularly good start with his first three dives, a back 2.5 somersault, a reverse 2.5 somersault with 1.5 twists, and a reverse 2.5 somersault, to score eight 8.5s and an 8.0. Performing his inward 3.5 somersault, the same dive in which he hit his head in June, he scored three-straight, solid 8.0s. Now comes the tricky part. After subbing in an easier dive for the preliminary rounds, Despatie has committed to performing his newest dive, a forward 4.5, in the final. The element, which was not a factor at the 2008 Olympic Games where Canadas top male diver earned his second silver medal, has been a game changer in this competition so far. Of the 12 divers to qualify for the final, seven performed the challenging dive. With a "degree of difficulty" of 3.8, is among the highest-scoring dives in the competition - when it is done right. He Chong of China, Ilya Zakharov of Russia and Qin Kai , also of China, each performed the dive successfully in the semi, riding its wave of 90-plus scores to top-three seeding in the final round. Despatie has only performed the dive once in competition, at a Grand Prix event in May. He overshot his entry to disappointing marks of 5.5 for his efforts. It goes without saying, but he will certainly need to do better to land on his third-straight Olympic podium. "I will add the front 4.5; as you can see, its very popular. A lot of guys are doing it, so Im doing the same," Despatie said. "Its been going well in training. Its quite a complicated dive in the sense that it is very demanding, but you have to be very calm and take the time to use the board to its fullest." The top-12 finishers advanced to the final, scheduled for 2:00pm et/11:00am pt. All divers will begin on even footing, with scores from the preliminary and semi-final rounds erased. Canadas second entry in the event, François Imbeau-Dulac of Quebec City, missed the final cut by a heartbreaking 1.45 points. He performed well throughout, but a miss on his third dive, a back 2.5 somersault, proved costly. Competing at his first Olympic Games, the 21-year-old overshot his finish, bringing up a splash and scores of 6.5, 6.5 and 6.0 for the attempt. "Of course it hurts not making it to the final because Im just a point and a half away. Its disappointing because I knew I could do a little better," Imbeau-Dulac said. "But Im just going to think positive and Ill look back to 2008 when (Canadian Olympic bronze medallist) Jennifer Abel also came 13th in the 3m springboard. Shes a world-class diver now. So Im just going to think about that and think about the fact that I have to work hard." China has picked up the gold medal in every diving event at the London 2012 Games so far, with a second Chinese diver adding a silver in the womens 3m springboard on Sunday. He, a friend of Despaties, is the favourite in the Tuesday-evening final. Despite finishing first in the semi, he says hes aiming for better as he continues his defence of his 2008 Olympic title. "I think my performance is just so-so, I still have room to improve for the final because I can do much better in training," he said. "I especially hope I can have less splash." His compatriot, Qin, was also left unsatisfied with his own semi-final results. In the preliminary round, the 2008 Olympic bronze medallist drastically overshot his 4.5, receiving uncharacteristically low scores of 3.8, 4.0 and 3.5 for the attempt. "I did just so-so (in the semi) because I slipped during the preliminary so I only wanted to make the final," he said. Watch the final at CTVOlympics.ca, beginning at 2:00pm et/11:00am pt. cheap jerseys . The news comes a day after Philadelphias defence took another hit, when Andrej Meszaros underwent surgery to repair a torn Achilles tendon. Meszaros is out indefinitely. Bourdon, 22, was selected by the Flyers in the 2008 third round. cheap nfl jerseys .55 million. The club reported a breakdown on Friday of $725,000 for 2013-14 and $825,000 in 2014-15. A 21-year-old winger, Bourque totaled seven goals and 12 assists in 43 games during his rookie campaign. http://www.tradechinajerseys.com/ .C. -- Fred Funk won the Greater Hickory Classic for his second Champions Tour title of the year and eighth overall, holing a 2-foot birdie putt on the final hole to beat Duffy Waldorf by a stroke. cheap jerseys from china . A trip to the Santiago Bernabeu looked to have consigned City to the harshest of starts to the continents premier club competition but the English champions will be relishing the chance to pile more misery on Madrid. The Spanish giants have dropped eight points from a possible 12 in the defence of their La Liga title, leaving the team in the unusual position of mid-table and prompting heavy criticism from coach Jose Mourinho about the players lack of commitment and spirit. wholesale nfl jerseys . The team said Morrow suffered a left oblique strain. Hes listed as day-to-day. Morrow felt something was not right after he threw ball two on a 1-1 pitch to Bryce Harper. MEDINAH, Ill. -- Davis Love III sent out his hottest player. Jose Maria Olazabal went with his strongest teams. The Ryder Cup captains had the same objectives Thursday when they announced their teams for the opening sessions at Medinah. Win points, the sooner the better. "We have to go for it," Olazabal said. "I know we are playing away. The crowds are going to be on their side. They set up the course to their liking. At the end of the day, you have to make a bunch of birdies out there to win points. So just send the best players out there and see if they can perform well, and manage to win those points." The foursomes lineup would seem to favour Europe. Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy, the best player in golf, will lead off Friday morning against Jim Furyk and Brandt Snedeker, who is coming off a sterling four weeks that led to his Tour Championship win five days ago and the FedEx Cup title. Snedeker describes himself as "jumpy," and Love found it important to get his fastest player out early. "We wanted to get Brandt going," Love said. In doing so, he became the third straight American captain to send out a Ryder Cup rookie in the leadoff match. Dustin Johnson was in the opening match at Wales, and Anthony Kim went out first at Valhalla. Both of them played with Phil Mickelson. Mickelson is in the second game with Keegan Bradley, and they face the tough task of trying to be the first team to beat Luke Donald and Sergio Garcia, who are 4-0 in foursomes. Garcia has never lost in alternate shot. His record is 8-0-1. "They are two very good players and it will be a tough match, but they are also two players that sometimes might not always hit it straight," Garcia said. "But we are just going to focus on our own games and hopefully we can win the point for Europe." Bradley referred to Garcia and Donald as "legends in the Ryder Cup." It will be the first time since 1995 that the Americans did not have either Mickelson or Tiger Woods in the leadoff match. Woods is the anchor this time with Steve Stricker, with whom he hass a 6-2 record in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup.ddddddddddddTheir last two outings, however, ended badly -- a 6-and-5 loss to Donald and Lee Westwood at Wales in 2010, and a record 7-and-6 loss to Adam Scott and K.J. Choi in the Presidents Cup last November. Woods and Stricker will play Ian Poulter and Justin Rose. Poulter is 8-3 in the Ryder Cup, though two of those losses were to Woods in team matches. Both of those matches were fourballs, where Woods has a stronger record. Woods and Rose share the same swing coach in Sean Foley. "There are no easy games in the Ryder Cup, but from a crowd perspective, if we do manage to go out there and get a point, it could be one of those huge swing-and-momentum moments," Rose said. "I think we go into this game with nothing to lose." In the third slot are Westwood and Francesco Molinari against Zach Johnson and Jason Dufner, the third American rookie who will be in the opening session. Both captains said all week the tough part would be figuring out who to leave out -- every player at Medinah is inside the top 35 in the world. Olazabal elected to bench Paul Lawrie, Martin Kaymer, Peter Hanson and Nicolas Colsaerts, the only rookie on Europes side. Love sat out the pairing of Webb Simpson and Bubba Watson, and Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar. "We have four on the bench. Were going to have to get them in the game," Love said. Love said he would see how the matches progressed Friday morning before deciding on his next move for fouballs in the afternoon, though he sounded resolved to stick with the plan he has mapped out for the Americans, who have lost six of the last eight times in the Ryder Cup. And the North Carolina alum even mentioned a basketball coaching great. "Dean Smith just ran his offence and he ran it and he ran it and he ran it until the game was over; and I think thats what we are going to do," Love said. "We have got a plan, we have some great players and we are just going to let them play until we run out of holes. I think everybody around me seems to feel like we have a pretty good plan." ' ' '