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Chinese Divers Sweep Golds, Silvers at Goodwill Games
Chinese divers proved why they are called the "Diving Dream Team" on Saturday by sweeping all the five gold medals and three silvers on offer at the Goodwill Games and accumulated their golds to seven in total after two days competition.
Duan Qing won the title of women's 10-meter platform with 331. 80 while teammate Li Ting took the silver in 361.14. The bronze was left to Svetlana Timoshinina of Russia who dived consistently with a average score of 70 points across all rounds in 358.92.
The Chinese pair outperformed the rest of the field, including Sydney Olympic champion Laura Wilkinson of the United States, in early rounds. The Chinese girls executed near faultless dives for the forward three and a half somersault and inward three and a half somersaults.
Wilkinson finished in a disappointed seventh place with 302.91 after big mistake in her second dive.
Early on Friday, China's Wang Tianling avenged his recent loss to teammate Wang Feng at the 2001 world championships, winning the men's one meter springboard title with 466.98 points.
Wang Feng came second with 425.07 and Aleksandr Dobroskok of Russia was third in 387.24, some 74.74 behind the winner's scores.
Guo Jingjing, the newly crowned champion on women's one meter board, added a second title to her collection here by grabbing the title of 3m springboard with a comfortable 344.94 points. The silver also went to China as Wu Minxia had 338.70.
The bronze was taken by Kiniko Hirai-Soldati of the United States, who obtained 330.33.
The men's platform synchronized final also turned out a Chinese show when current world champions Tian Liang and Hu Jia dominated the event by scoring a day-high mark of 93.12 for their inward three and a half somersault in tuck position.
Tian and Hu won the title with 360.99 points, 30.96 ahead of Australian pair Matthew Helm and Robert Newbery. The bronze went to Russians Aleksandr Varlamov and Igor Lukshin in 325.56.
Peng Bo and Wang Kenan gave China a perfect day in Friday's fifth and last event on the men's 3m springboard synchronized diving. The current world champions were awarded high points from the judges in all rounds, ending with a winning total of 353.52 points.
Russia's Dmitri Sautin and Aleksandr Dobroskok practiced the most difficult dive of the event, a reverse two and a half somersault with one and a half twists. But it was not enough to overtake the Chinese duo, winning only the silver with 334.17.
The bronze went to Mexicans Joel Rodriguez and Fernando Platas, who scoring high points in the last two rounds for a total of 321. 33.
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