Berlin Day 4: China adds 2 golds

Although China entered only four of the nine events at the 2024 Berlin World Cup, it won all four golds in the individual events, including two on Sunday – first, in the men’s 3m final when its three-time world champion and 2020 Olympic silver medalist Wang Zongyuan topped 500 points while the other big names dropped in and out of podium position until the final round when Osmar Olvera Ibarra of Mexico captured silver and Germany’s Lars Rudiger captured the bronze.

A few hours later, 16-year-old world and Olympic champion Quan Hongchan spanked her elders in the women’s 10m final, earning perfect 10s from all but one judge on her hardest dive, a back 3½, to score 99 points in the penultimate round. Remarkably, her four-dive total was so high that she still would have won if she sat out round five. But no. She earned another 10 and some 9.5s and 9s on her last dive to tally 432.80 for the day. Nineteen-year-old Andrea Spendolini Sirieix of Great Britain trailed by 93.70 points for silver. Caeli McKay of Canada took bronze.

Earlier on Sunday, the US claimed its second gold in Berlin in women’s 3m synchro, as Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon topped the four other pairs. In men’s 10m synchro, Tom Daley and Noah Williams gave Great Britain its third gold medal of the weekend with a dominant performance over Canada and Australia who finished 2-3. 

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Women’s 3m Synchro

In the women’s 3m synchro final, less than eight points separated gold from bronze. But the event wasn’t a total nail-biter. Cook, 28, and Bacon, 27, of the US led after each of the five rounds and won gold with 303.21 points. The climactic moment came on the last dive of the last round when the 2016 Olympic bronze medalists Maddison Keeney, 27, and Anabelle Smith, 31, threw a well-synchronized forward 2½ with one twist that scored 71.10 points to clinch silver for Australia, just 1.14 points ahead of Great Britain.

The British two-time World Championship medalists Scarlett Mew Jensen, 22, and Yasmin Harper, 23, were still happy with the bronze. After placing sixth at the last World Cup in Montreal, Mew Jensen celebrated “getting our mojo back!”

After the win, Cook was pleased with the Americans’ consistency and attitude. “We went through each dive calm and nice and relaxed,” she said.

As for the Aussie’s clutch performance to take silver, Smith said, “It’s all just practice for us for [the Olympics in] Paris. I think we’re in a really good position.”

Keeney said she didn’t mind being the last pair to dive. In fact, she said it was “good pressure testing. You can hear what everyone else is doing.” Now, Keeney plans to return to work as a fleet manager for a mining company while training for April’s World Cup Super Final in Xi’an.

Smith was eagerly anticipating Xi’an too. Compared to the 2024 World Championships in Qatar and World Cup stops in Montreal and Berlin, Smith said, “China’s the quickest flight for us and the best for time change, so I think we’re all looking forward to that!”

Men’s 10m Synchro

The 2024 World Championships silver medalists from Great Britain, Tom Daley, 29, and Noah Williams, 23, cruised to victory in the men’s 10m synchro final, scoring more than 93 points on their two hardest dives (in rounds four and six) to seize the gold with 465.00 points. Canada’s World Championships bronze medalists Nathan Zsombor-Murray, 20, and Rylan Wiens, 22, took a firm grip on second place in round three and stayed there to capture silver, 56.01 points behind the winners. Australia’s Cassiel Rousseau, 23, and Domonic Bedggood, 29, placed third, 6.42 points behind the Canadians.

Given the high degree of difficulty of Great Britain’s dive list, Daley said he wasn’t surprised by their large winning margin. Going into the final dive, the most difficult forward 4½, Williams admitted, however that he “didn’t really have a plan. I didn’t want to overthink it.” It worked, because it earned the highest score of the day: 95.46 points.

Afterwards, Daley called Williams “a warrior” for competing through illness on Saturday and winning the 10m synchro final without even practicing on Sunday morning.

“I had a bad reaction to some antibiotics,” Williams explained. “It’s not a sickness, but I haven’t really recovered. Now, hopefully, I can relax and get better.”

Silver medalist Zsombor-Murray said Canada’s plan for Sunday was “definitely a medal” so… mission accomplished. He and Wiens started competing together after Zsombor-Murray’s Tokyo Olympic partner retired.

Rousseau said Sunday’s bronze medal “was unexpected but a good result,” explaining that his partner competed with a pulled abdominal muscle. “It might be torn. We don’t know yet,” then admitted that he himself was sick the day before Saturday’s individual event. “I didn’t think we’d be competing today,” Rousseau said.

As for taking off from two separate 10m platforms and how it could derail synchronization, Bedggood gave all credit to Rousseau, saying his partner is “very aware of his peripherals.”

Perhaps the biggest revelation was that Ukraine’s young pair, 14-year-old Mark Hrytsenko and 18-year-old Danylo Avanesov, beat some of the world’s best teams on the dives that had lower DDs. In all synchro events, the degree of difficulty is capped at 2.0 on the first two dives and Ukraine was racking up 9.0s right along with the Brits in those rounds. In fact, Ukraine and Great Britain were the only pairs with more than 100 points entering the third round (of six). The record book will show that Ukraine placed seventh of the nine teams, but the duo certainly proved its potential.

Men’s 3m

In a topsy-turvy men’s 3m final, the top two finishers at the Montreal World Cup ultimately prevailed to repeat their 1-2 finish in Berlin. Wang Zongyuan, 22, of China, took gold again with 505.90 points, followed by Mexico’s Osmar Olvera Ibarra, 19. Olvera Ibarra had said in Canada that he would keep working so he would be “more close” to beating Wang in Germany. And he was, but he bounced around in the top five all night and trailed Wang by 29.20 points for silver.

The surprise of the day was Lars Rudiger, 27, who rose from eighth place after the first round to take bronze for the host nation. He didn’t have the highest combined degree of difficulty, but when the big guns unraveled in at least one round (even Wang), Rudiger was adding at least 80 points to his score in half his dives.

After the win, Wang said, “it was not that easy to have this gold prize,” but at least he finished with his favourite dive, the forward 4½, and was rewarded with 91.20 points – the only score in the contest over 90 points.

Olvera Ibarra was happy with second place but knew he had room for improvement. “I keep working and fighting for the medals,” he said.

For Rudiger, the key to bronze was two-fold: self-confidence and staying calm. Even though his practices went well all week, he said he was “more nervous than usual,” but the home crowd gave him energy. “It was really a big boost. Before every dive, they cheered so loud. It was amazing.”

Notably, Zheng Jiuyuan, 19, of China placed fourth (just as he had in Montreal) after finding himself in eighth place at the midpoint of the contest. Once again, his third-round reverse 3½ (with 3.5 DD) was his undoing, but he climbed back to finish 12.60 points off the podium.

Three-time World Championships bronze medalist Jack Laugher, 29, of Great Britain, had a rough day from the outset and finished ninth of the 12 finalists. In two rounds, he had last-place scores: the first, earning 59.50 for one of his easiest dives, and the fourth when he earned 40.95 for his hardest, with a 3.9DD.

Women’s 10m

Quan Hongchan of China led the women’s 10m event in each of the five rounds, scored a perfect dive, and finished the day 93.70 points ahead of the runner-up, Andrea Spendolini Sirieix of Great Britain. Really, the suspense was over who would finish third. After three rounds, the divers ranked third through eighth were separated by 10 points. In round four, however, Canada’s Caeli McKay, 24, pulled ahead of the American Delaney Schnell and stayed there to edge Schnell out of a bronze medal by 5.2 points.

After the victory, Quan uttered the prevailing sentiment expressed by Chinese divers after a win. “For this kind of performance, I am not that satisfied,” she said.

Yet runner-up Spendolini Sirieix said she was “inspired by [Quan’s] drive, by her perfection, really” and said she was “inching my way closer and closer to the Chinese. With every competition, it is a new possibility and new opportunity to do just that.”

McKay said that even though she moved up a step after placing fourth at the Montreal World Cup, her performance on Sunday was “nothing spectacular. I’m struggling a little bit with strength in my arm after three days of the 10m in a row. It’s not the easiest schedule, but I’ll go home satisfied with a medal.”

Up next: The World Cup Super Final in Xi’an, China, April 19-21.