Star divers boost local teen dreams in Xi'an

XI'AN, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Diving champions Chen Yuxi and Wang Zongyuan of China, Rikuto Tamai of Japan and Ingrid Oliveira of Brazil showed up here on Thursday at a training clinic for local teenage divers.

In the activity, held one day ahead of the start of the 2023 Diving World Cup, the champions took part in a one-hour training session with 10 local teenage divers by working together from warm-up, dry-land training to pool training as coaches.

Chen, a two-time world champion in the women's 10m platform and a 17-year-old teen herself, said she had never tried coaching before.

"It is my first time teaching young divers and it is good to see all these kids love diving," Chen said.

16-year-old Tamai, runner-up in the men's 10m platform at last year's World Championships, answered a question about overcoming the fear to try new daring and difficult dives: "I used to be scared of trying new dives, but I told myself 'sooner or later you need to overcome the difficulties, so why not beat the fear from now on'. Be brave."

Oliveira could not speak either Chinese or English, but her body language was good enough for her to communicate with her Chinese students.

"I'm honored to be a coach to them. It is a good way to make our sport more popular," Oliveira said.

Wang, triple gold medalist at the 2022 Worlds, said there might be some potential among the young divers. "Maybe we planted seeds of hope today and boosted their dreams of being champions in the future," said the 21-year-old.

For local diving coach Yan Hui, it was difficult to pick out 10 representatives, aged from 8 to 12, out of 100 local teen divers because all of them wanted to learn from their idols.

"What a golden opportunity for these kids today. Thanks to champions and organizers, they could have a chance to get close to the world champions and learn something," Yan said.

"I had never thought about diving with current world champions someday. But all of a sudden, my dream came true. I hope I can be a champion just like them in the future," said 12-year-old Li Xinyi from Xi'an Sports School.

"I will come to watch the Diving World Cup every day," Li added.

A total of 63 elite divers from 13 countries and regions will compete in the three-day tournament in Xi'an.