CHINA COMPLETE CLEAN SWEEP AT FINA DIVING WORLD SERIES
China continued to prove their dominance of world diving
on the final day of competition at the FINA Diving World Series
in Ponds Forge in Sheffield.
The world number one diving nation successfully completed
their second clean sweep, with gold medals going to Jingjing
Guo in the women's 3m individual event, Kai Qin and Feng Wang
in the Men's 3m Synchro, Yue Lin in the men's 10m event and
Xin Wang and Roulin Chen in the Women's 10m Synchro event.
Britain claimed their first medal of the competition in the
Men's 3m Synchro, Ben Swain and Nicholas Robinson-Baker were
competing against the World's best springboard divers and
claimed bronze in the final. Elsewhere, Britain's young divers
showed their potential with excellent performances from Thomas
Daley in the men's 10m individual and Tonia Couch and Stacie
Powell in the Women's 10m Synchro.
The closest fought final of the day was found in the Men's
3m Synchro final, which saw China's Kai Qin and Feng Wang
secure the gold medal with a total of 441.84 points.
The World Champions extended their lead out of reach in the
fourth round when they took 88.74 points from one of the highest
tariff dives - the forward 2 ½ somersaults 2 twists.
"It is my first competition since my injury and I feel
surprisingly well and I have dived really good," Qin
said. "I feel very confident, it would be nice to get
some proper training in me although results like that give
me more confidence."
With the gold medal already decided Canada, Great Britain
and Germany were left to battle it out for the silver medal.
Great Britain's pairing of Ben Swain and Nicholas Robinson-Baker
were showing excellent form from the first round, they continued
to score consistent marks and secured personal best scores
in each round.
But the class of Canada's Alexandre Despatie and Andreas
Wels showed through in the fifth round when the upped their
game with their forward 2 ½ somersaults 2 twists to
secure 85.68 to put them further ahead of the British pair.
Despatie and Wels took silver with 416.76 points, which meant
that Great Britain took their first medal of the competition
when Swain and Robinson-Baker took bronze with a strong final
dive, finishing with 402.66 points.
"We had an expectation to do well," Swain said.
"But to beat World medallists is a complete surprise.
We have been really pumped up coming into this competition
and we have put a lot of hard work in at training.
"We got some excellent scores and our dives just felt
good in every round. It was really good to get our PB. Our
favourite dive is our reverse 2 ½ somersaults 1 ½
twists, we save that until the end because we know we can
perform it well. We are happy with how high our marks were
but we know we have the potential to improve and we are focussing
on going onto the Olympics."
Britain's young Diving sensation Tom Daley continued to prove
to the World his true potential when he qualified for the
final of the Men's 10m Individual Platform.
Daley found himself in a semi final alongside World championship
divers Dmitriy Dobroskok (Russia) and Luxin Zhou (China).
The thirteen year-old never let nerves get the better of him
as he took to the boards with confidence and took three nines
in his first dive (Inward 2 ½ somersaults) to secure
74.20 points. Daley qualified in second place behind Zhou,
with a 467.45 points.
This result saw him in the final with the World's top three
divers and Daley continued to show his maturity with impressive
dives from the first round.
World Champion Gleb Galperin (Russia) took the lead with
his first round dive (Inward 3 ½ somersaults) and he
looked in charge until he missed his dive in the second round
which gave China's Yue Lin and Luxin Zhou to close in on the
lead.
Lin took the first perfect ten of the competition in the
fourth round with his back 3 ½ somersaults, which extended
his lead over Zhou.
The fifth round saw the best dive of the event with Lin performing
a reverse 3 ½ somersaults and claim four tens to secure
his first place and the title. Lin finished with 534.90 points.
"That was an exciting event," said Lin. "I
think maybe the difference was my fifth dive, reverse 3 ½
somersaults. It went particularly well. Training for that
dive hasn't been going so well but yesterday I was hitting
it properly and it proved to be the deciding factor. I am
very happy with how I've dived."
All divers brought out their best in the final round, with
Britain's Daley taking 91.80 points with his hardest dive.
"I am really happy to have made the final," said
Daley. "It feels amazing to have competed against the
World top three. I know I could have done better on a couple
of my dives in the final and I was only five points behind
the World Champion.
"I felt good going into today after the synchro event
yesterday. My and Callum got a personal best so I knew I was
diving well. I know I have more to come and I will now be
working on harder tariff's so I can gain more marks from my
dives."
Silver was taken by Zhou with 505.95 and bronze went to Gleb
Galperin with 446.55 points.
The Women's 3m Springboard final saw World Champion Jingjing
Guo showed her calibre to claim her second gold medal of the
competition after leading throughout the tough final.
The World Champion set the standard early on with an impressive
Back 2 ½ Somersaults, which gained her 82.50 points
from the judges. She continued to show her strong form with
her second dive (reverse 2 ½ somersaults) which gained
her four nines from the judges. She took the gold with a total
of 383.10 points.
Her Chinese team-mate Minxia Wu and Russia's Yuliya Pakhalina
were left to fight it out for the silver medal. There was
nothing between them until the fourth round. The battle for
the silver medal was decided when Minxia Wu missed her entry
on the reverse 2 ½ somersaults, which left Pakhalina
to claim the second spot.
The Olympic medallist Pakhalina took silver with 359.00 and
the current Olympic champion Wu finished with 332.80 points
to take the bronze.
"I took gold but didn't perform as well as I wanted,"
said Wu. "I feel like I made some mistakes and it just
proves that anything can happen in diving but overall in Sheffield
I feel like I have dived well and have two gold medals to
show for it."
The Women's 10m Synchro saw the World's top three pairings
competing for the title and the World Champions Wang and Chen
took an early lead and dominated throughout.
>From their first dive they secured a perfect ten and
dived consistently
>to take the gold with an excellent final dive, back 2
½ somersaults 1 ½
>twists, to finish with 352.08 points and to take their
second gold
>medal of the competition.
Britain's pairing of Tonia Couch and Stacie Powell performed
well throughout and kept up with the World number two Australia
throughout. Silver went to Canada's Emilie Heymans and Marie
Eve Marleau with 330.84 and silver was secured by Australia's
Briony Cole and Melissa Wu with 309.54 points.
Couch and Powell secured 303.72 points to finish ahead of
the World number three Germany.
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