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DIVING: Chinese win synchronized 3m diving

Defending champions Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia of China won the Olympic women’s synchronized 3m springboard diving gold medal yesterday, having led the competition from the start.

Alongside Wu, 22, Chinese superstar Guo, 27, collected the first of the two medals she is bidding for in the Water Cube as the pair retained the Olympic title they won in Athens.

“I am satisfied with my performance today and we are both very happy, because we are on home soil in China — we are very proud to have won,” said Guo, who bowed with her partner to the cheering crowd after every dive. “It’s so exciting having our own people cheer for us and hopefully there will be more to celebrate in the coming days.”

Having also won the solo 3m springboard title four years ago, Guo is the hot favorite in the individual event at her third and final Olympics, having said she will retire after the Games.

“I am not thinking of life after these games, everything I do is focused on winning here,” she said.

The Chinese were again unbeatable in the event having recently dominated the World Series by winning all three legs in Nanjing, Sheffield and Tijuana.

The pair started strongly and scored three perfect 10s in the second round for their back dive.

They led by 17 points going into the final dive and made sure of the gold with a back two-and-a-half somersault.

The Chinese pair made very few mistakes throughout, but Gou insisted plenty of hard work had gone into perfecting their gold medal-winning dives.

“It’s not as easy or relaxed as people think,” Guo said.

“We worked hard and trained hard every day. For this competition, we made a lot of preparations, training from morning to night, so although it looked easy to you, we earned it. We were under a lot of pressure before the competition, but we just focused on making sure we did what we had to do,” she said.

Russia’s Julia Pakhalina, who won gold in the same competition in 2000 in Sydney with now retired Vera Ilynia, took the silver medal with her new partner Anastasia Pozdnyakova.

“I am pleased with the result, it was different diving here with Anastasia compared to Vera, but I am pleased with the way it went here,” said the Russian, who won her fourth diving medal at her third Olympics.

And Germany’s Ditte Kotzian and Heike Fischer made sure of bronze by winning the fifth round with a reverse two-and-a half somersault.

“Congratulations to the winners, they deserved it and we are just happy to have got our first medal,” Fischer said.
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