Australia's Mattew Helm had a steady preliminary as he booked the semifinals ticket as the top seed at the men's 10 meters platform, the final event of the Olympic diving competition in Athens on August 27.

Helm, silver medallist in the 2003 World Championship and bronze medalist in the Olympic synchronized platform on August 14, collected 513.06 points from six dives ahead of Canada's Alexandre Despatie 500.55.

Despatie, who has already won silver in the Olympic 3m springboard and is the reigning 10m platform world champion, said: "I didn't do too much today, but that's good because in the 3m event I did great in the preliminary, but I did not do so good in the final. I am happy about how it turned out today.

"I am confident for the final tomorrow. There are a couple of things I would like to work on for tomorrow."

Defending champion Tian who had a poor second dive for a 51.45, came back with a third place finish for 481.47.

Tian, newly-crowned synchronized winner, said: "My performance was normal. It gives me room to put more into my dives tomorrow. The errors I made today are my goal for improvement tomorrow. If I had dived too good I would have nothing to do tomorrow."

Britain's Peter Waterfield, Mexico's Rommel Pacheco, China's Hu Jia also qualified for the semifinals to be held in August 28 noon time and the final will be decided at 21.00pm on the same day.