China on route to sweep diving WC
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Xinhua, February 25, 2012
Chinese "dream team" was one step closer to a clean sweep of the golds at the 18th Diving World Cup after Wu Minxia led a 1-2 finish in the women's 3m springboard final at the Olympic Aquatics Center on Friday night.
|
|
| Wu Minxia took gold with 368.95 points in the women's 3m springboard final at the Olympic Aquatics Center on Friday night. [Sina.com] |
![Wu Minxia took gold with 368.95 points in the women's 3m springboard final at the Olympic Aquatics Center on Friday night. [Sina.com]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20120225/00114320def110b2ba1d01.jpg "Wu Minxia took gold with 368.95 points in the women's 3m springboard final at the Olympic Aquatics Center on Friday night. [Sina.com]")
In the final, however, positions were reversed as Wu took gold with 368.95 points and He, who is also Wu's synchronized 3m partner, silver with 365.40 points, just 3.55 points behind. Third place went to Tania Cagnotto of Italy who is back to her best after breaking her wrist in 2011 in a motorbike accident.
The one-two result repeats what the duo took at last year's world championships in Shanghai.
"Overall I am satisfied with all my dives except the last one," said the 26-year-old Wu.
On her expectations for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the winner said she needed to cool down and improve the details.
"There is still a few months to go, so we still have time to train enough to improve our performance."
After the retirement of "diving queen" Guo Jingjing, Wu and He were both tipped as the next leading diver in the 3m event for China.
"Score is really not that important. We are at the same level. So performance is important, not the competition between us. China is a very close-knit team, so the overall result is what matters most," said Wu.
The 21-year-old He, who will make her first Olympic show if she can be selected this summer, said she hoped to reach one of her peaks in diving career.
"Every one has a chance to win the gold. But first, you must dare to think about it then you have chance to achieve it," said He.
China has now won every event at the 18th FINA Visa Diving World Cup.
The last two gold medals will be produced on Saturday from women's 3m synchro springboard and men's individual 10m platform.
Also on Friday, the men's 10m preliminaries were staged on.
In the end it was neither the Olympic nor the world champion who finished top of the leader-board but China's Lin Yue, the Olympic synchro platform champion, who ended the session top.
Lin, 20, finished with 519.80 points as he led the 18 qualifiers into Saturday's semifinal in one of the most eagerly awaited events.
The session brought together Olympic champion, Matthew Mitcham of Australia, the only non-Chinese diver to win gold at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and China's world champion Qiu Bo.
Qiu,19, finished second with 506.75 and Mitcham, 23, fourth with 498.90 points, just 0.05 behind Christofer Eskilsson of Sweden who was third.
"At this equivalent event before Beijing four years ago, I came fifth, after I'd only come back to training 15 months before the 2008 Olympics.
"And I'm kind of in the same spot now, so I'm taking this as a good omen," said Mitcham, who just recovered from injuries. His last major competition was in April last year.
The Aussie Olympic champion also showed his confidence to beat Chinese divers in this summer.
"I don't know if it can be done here at this competition because I am so fresh in my comeback, but coming back here in July, that's the plan," he added.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)