Brandon’s Chris Colwill, a product of Tampa Prep and University of Georgia, took ninth place in Friday’s 1-meter springboard diving competition at the FINA World Championships in Rome, Italy.

It was Colwill’s opening day of competition at the prestigious meet and for a time, it looked like the 2008 Olympian had a good chance of making it to the medals podium. Colwill stood in second place after the qualifying round Friday morning but in that night’s finals, he swapped out his inward 2-½ tuck for the more difficult inward 2-½ pike. As a result, Colwill scored 2s and 3s on the more difficult dive after 7.5s and 8s on the tuck in the prelims.

Colwill had a final score of 350.30 while China’s Qin Kai scored 449.00 points for gold and teammate Zhang Xinhua earned silver at 445.90. Australia’s Matthew Mitchman was the bronze medal winner with a score of 440.20.

“I’m very capable of hitting that harder dive. Today just wasn’t the day,” Colwill said. “But I’ve got another event, and I’ve been working hard on 3-meter.”

Colwill was the top U.S. diver in the 1-meter event. Terry Horner of Orlando was 16th with 336.15 points in his world championships debut.

Colwill’s next and final event, 3-meter springboard, begins Wednesday.

Photo: Brandon native Chris Colwill performs during the men’s 1-meter springboard diving preliminaries at the FINA Swimming World Championships in Rome, Italy. AP Photo/Michael Sohn.