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Despatie takes it to the Chinese

Defending world champion Alexandre Despatie dives during the preliminary round of the the men's 3m springboard at the 12th FINA World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, yesterday. PHOTO: EPA

Alexandre Despatie caused a few double-takes at the world championships yesterday. As in, the Canadian was leading a diving event and a couple of Chinese were trailing.

Despatie, winner of the 3m springboard in his hometown of Montreal in 2005, got off to a good start in defending his title by leading the preliminaries in Melbourne, relegating Chinese divers Qin Kai and He Chong into second and third respectively.

That's not a familiar place for the Chinese, who had led 11 straight rounds of diving while winning the first four events, including Qin's gold with Wang Feng in the 3m synchronized springboard.

Despatie had 486.54 points in the prelims. The top 18 advanced to today's semi-finals, with the final set for that evening.

Qin finished with 474.70, followed by He at 470.75. Close behind was another veteran, Russia's Dmitry Sautin at 470.70, while American Troy Dumais, who won silver in Montreal, was fifth at 456.00.

Despatie, who also won the 1m in Montreal but did not defend his title here, said it's important not to be overawed by the Chinese.

"A lot of people make too big deal about the Chinese divers," Despatie said. "I keep saying they are going to be amazing [at next year's Olympics] but it is our job to try and be at the same level. My job is to go to Beijing in the best shape that I can," he said.

In early men's water polo, Tony Azevedo scored six goals as the US moved to 2-0 with a 14-4 win over South Africa. Defending champions Serbia beat Italy 6-3 on Aleksandar Sapic's three goals, also moving to 2-0.

In other matches, Germany beat Japan 17-7 and Romania defeated New Zealand 18-4 for their first wins after two matches.

Azevedo said the Americans won't be overconfident even though they have all but clinched a spot in the second round.

"Not getting too far ahead of ourselves is something we constantly talk about because we're definitely afraid of it," Azevedo said.
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