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China Scoops Third 1-2 in Diving
China Scoops Third 1-2 in Diving
China showed the depth of expertise in diving Friday when Wang Rui led Cai Yuyan in a one-two in the women's 10m platform, bringing China its third gold and third silver in as many diving events at the University Games.
Wang amassed 546.30 points from her five final and four semifinal dives to win by a margin of 10.47 points over her teammate Cai Yuyan with 535.83.
Ri Ok Rim from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea collected 532.80 points to place third, followed by her compatriot Choe Myong Hwa with 526.14.
The final was full of drama as Cai had led the 12-strong field all through the final until the last round. She fatally threw away her advantage in the five and last round of dives, garnering only 58.56 points for her back one and a half somersaults with three and a half twists, giving away the gold to Wang, who was third going into the last round.
Wang seized the opportunity by pulling off a brilliant final dive which netted her 80.64 points for a total of 546.30 points, which determined the fate of the title.
"I didn't do well with my last dive because I had not mastered the technique very well," Cai said after her disappointing showing. "I have not yet practiced it to perfection during my training," she said, seemingly not much disturbed by the failure.
"So far as skills are concerned, Wang Rui and I are close. The two of us had been taking gold and silver in turn at many national or international competitions before," said the 19-year-old, who won double silver medals on highboard at the Swimming World Championships in 1998 in Perth.
Meanwhile, Wang seemed relieved after clinching the gold, which she missed at the 1999 Universiade in Palma de Mallorca, when she was beaten by teammate Fu Mingxia.
"I feel relieved after the victory," said the 20-year-old, who is studying the English language at Tsinghua University, where the Universiade diving program takes place.
"I didn't do well in the first three rounds because I was nervous, afraid of not winning the gold," said Wang, the reigning national champion on highboard. "But I relaxed in the last two rounds and performed to my ability," she said.
Ri Ok Rim, 23, said her hard training paid off.
"I came off 22nd (in the platform) at the Sydney Olympics last year. Since then, I've been training extremely hard, and today's bronze is a reward for that," she said.
Ri, practically unheard of before the contest, turned out a dark horse in Friday's event. She won a day-high score of 80.91 points with her second dive in the final, a back two and a half somersaults in pike.
Chinese coaches said Ri and Choe will be big threats to China in future international meets, because Chinese female platform divers hold a relatively small edge over the others.
China grabbed the first two golds in the diving pool at the Universiade Thursday in the men's and the women's 1m springboard.
Saturday sees the men's 3m springboard, the fourth of the 10- event diving program. China's springboard masters Wang Tianling, Wang Feng and Wang Kenan are widely seen as the favorites in the events.
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