With a total of 389.10 points, Bouyer, 20, and Jandard, 26, finished behind the untouchable Chinese Wang Zongyuan and Long Daoyi, in gold with 456.33 pts at the end of the six dives, and the British Jack Laugher and Anthony Harding, in silver (424.62).

The French duo had qualified in extremis for the final with the 11th and penultimate place of the qualifiers on Saturday morning. But the two men recovered in a good way in the evening to produce a high-level performance, especially on the last two dives.

"That's +phew+ what's going on! Clearly this (Saturday) morning, we did not expect to do this this afternoon, it was a little difficult, "said Alexis Jandard. "(But) we took the opportunity to go to the final and gave everything we had."

"When we go to the final, everything is reset, we are all equal," explained his partner.

Fifth last year at the World Championships in Budapest, the two divers climb two ranks in the world hierarchy one year before the Paris Olympics.

"A good omen"

"We know we have this potential. We continue to build and we still have a year before the Paris Olympics. It's just +ouf+!", said Jandard. "We continue to climb the ladder, we still have room for improvement, we must not relax and we continue our work in training."

"It bodes well for the Games," Bouyer added with a smile.

The French, who have only been diving together for two years, arrived in Fukuoka on the momentum of a successful European Games at the end of June in Krakow, where they had won four medals between them.

For Alexis Jandard in particular, the road to the world podium has been particularly winding with two heavy operations since the Tokyo Games (2021), to a shoulder and an Achilles tendon. "I've come a long way in every sense of the word," the former gymnast admitted.

"It's hard to hear, but I think it's been much more beneficial than negative," he continued, reflecting on this period of forced rest that he welcomed philosophically.

"I was able to breathe. My body spoke for me, I had to stop. I've been able to do other things on the side and I'm thriving a lot more today than if I had stayed with my head on the handlebars all the way."

The two medalists will return to the diving board in Fukuoka on Wednesday for the individual event.

© 2023 AFP