Chinese Diving Team Collects First Two Golds at Universiade

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 25, 2003

Chinese Diving Team Collects First Two Golds at Universiade

After the disappointment in the world championships, Chinese national diving team reconvened to storm into the 22nd World University Games by collecting the first two golds here on Sunday.

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Chinese Diving Team Collects First Two Golds at Universiade

After the disappointment in the world championships, Chinese national diving team reconvened to storm into the 22nd World University Games by collecting the first two golds here on Sunday.

World champion Wu Minxia clinched the first diving gold for China as she triumphed in the women's one-meter springboard event.

Peng Bo and Wang Kenan cooperated to seal a two-gold victory when they eased into the throne on men's three-meter synchronized.

The Chinese team, however, missed golds on both competitions atthe Barcelona World Championships which ended last month.

Wu Dives to Gold for China at Daegu Universiade

Wu scored 309.99 points, beating her teammate Guo Jingjing, double world champion at Barcelona, to the second place on 309.73 points. Russian Nataliya Umyskova was left in a distant third on 277.11 points.

"It is my first time in the Universiade so I am glad to take the gold," said the 18-year-old Wu, who grabbed the women's synchronized three-meter event with Guo at the worlds.

"The one-meter event is not an official one in the Olympics so we usually put less attention to it," Wu said, "But I tried my best in the diving and I won."

Whereas Guo, who did a near-perfect fifth dive with clean entry,regretted her early flaw.

"My first dive was not so good, which cost me the victory," said Guo, who received 51.06 points for her 203B first dive.

Peng and Wang led all way through the five rounds and ended up with a clean last dive, which earned them 84.66 to top the ranking.

The pair scored 347.13 points, 41.22 points higher than Jorge Marinez and Omar Ojeda of Mexico, who took silver. Italian M. Mazzucchi and C. Sacchin outrun the home pair Kwon Kyung-min and Cho Kwan-hoon at the last dive to pick up bronze with 303.84.

"It's not so difficult compared to world championships since not all the teams sent their first-class divers here," Peng said.

"That's why we can win with relative ease, but we're satisfied with our performance," added Peng.

The team leader Zhou Jihong also expressed gratitude for the South Korean spectators' support, who didn't restrain from hailingthe Chinese team while cheering on their own divers.

"They are really nice and kept on yelling and clapping for us. It's really touching," she said.

The home crowd even repeatedly sang a pop Chinese song "Tianmimi" during the break between the two finals.(Xinhua)

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