Youth Olympic Games

It was theoretically not an easy final for Jiao Liu. The Chinese star had won the 10m platform in Day 1 of the diving programme at the Toa Payoh Swimming Complex of these Youth Olympic Games, and surely wanted to demonstrate that she was the best female diver of the competition by triumphing also in the 3m springboard. Then, came the natural elements, a pouring rain during the final’s time, which is always something that disturbs in a variable extent the athletes. Finally, Liu was under the direct scrutiny of her compatriot and best female diver of history, China’s Jingjing Guo, witnessing the competition from the stands.

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Youth Olympic Games

The second event of the diving programme of the Youth Olympic Games – the men’s 3m springboard – created an enormous expectation from the moment it was announced that Tom Daley, from Great Britain, would be one of the participating athletes. Daley, 16, and 2009 world champion in 10m platform, has an injury in the right triceps muscle and decided to skip his pet event, favouring a less-demanding (from a physical point of view) 3m springboard. Adding to this last-minute change, Bo Qiu (from China), silver medallist behind Daley in the Italian capital, was also in the list of 15 boys contesting the preliminaries of the event.

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Youth Olympic Games

China’s Jiao Liu was the first diving winner of these Youth Olympic Games, by earning the gold in the women’s 10m platform, at the Toa Payoh Swimming Complex, in a spectacular outdoor (and night) action, on this Saturday. Liu started to construct her brilliant victory in the preliminaries of the event, when she finished first, and carried forward to the final the second best points of the heats – the final result of the divers comprised the marks of the four dives with limited DD (Degree of Difficulty) from the heats, with the four dives of the final (without limit of DD).

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Youth Olympic Games

No less than 16 nations medalled in the sixth and last session of the Youth Olympic Games, being held in Singapore. Throughout the nine finals of this Friday, witnessed by Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, three countries were, nevertheless in evidence, at the pool of the Singapore Sports School: China and Hungary, with three gold medals each, and France, with two swimmers winning a race. Australia and Croatia were the remaining winners of the session, which had two shared gold medals, precisely in the first and fastest event on the programme, the women’s 50m free.

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Youth Olympic Games

It was certainly not on purpose, but having only three finals in the fifth session of the Swimming programme at these Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, almost obliges who is reporting the event to look outside of the eight lanes of a swimming pool. For the records, there was the final of the 50m butterfly, won by Ukraine’s Andrii Govorov in 23.64 (he had also won the 50m free); there was also the decisive race in the women’s 50m backstroke, where France got the first gold of the competition by Mathilde Cini (29.19); and, finally, China earned its eighth title of these Games by triumphing in the women’s 4x100m free relay. These are the “hard” performances, before the last nine finals on the programme, scheduled for this Friday.

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Youth Olympic Games

“Variety” was the key-concept of the fourth session of finals at the Youth Olympic Games, taking place in Singapore. Throughout the seven finals contested, no less than 13 nations earned medals in the pool of the Sports School; two of them – Singapore and Kuwait (competing in these Games under the IOC flag) – were on a swimming Olympic podium for the first time; Australia was the most prolific country, with no less than six awards (one gold, two silver and three bronze) in this session; China, with two gold, comfortably reinforced the lead of the medal chart; Italy won the first race of these Games; to complete the scenario, the many spectators and young students that filled the stands of the venue were even awarded with a shared medal (bronze) in the men’s 50m backstroke.

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Youth Olympic Games

With China reinforcing its lead of the medal chart at the swimming competition of the first Youth Olympic Games, taking place in Singapore, some preliminary conclusions can be taken regarding the athletes to watch for the future. In fact, after 15 finals contested, many multi-medallists are proving their potential and many of them will certainly be a “card to play” in future editions of FINA World Championships and Olympic Games.

Among men, the star so far is South Africa’s Chad Le Clos. In the third session of finals, he managed to earn two more medals, this time the silver in the 100m butterfly and the bronze in the 4x100m free relay. His collection is now of four awards, after his silver in the 400m free and the gold in the 200m individual medley.

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Youth Olympic Games

There are countries that transformed the act of winning an Olympic medal in Swimming into a “normal” thing: nations like United States, Australia or Russia have in each of the stars earning an Olympic podium a swimmer of talent, but the “quantity” of success necessarily leads to routine. There are many other countries for which the winning combination “Swimming + Olympics + Medals” was never a reality. The first edition of the Youth Olympic Games, taking place in Singapore, is re-balancing the situation: if the inaugural day of finals marked the first Olympic medals in this discipline for Venezuela (Cristian Quintero, bronze in the men’s 400m free) and Czech Republic (Barbora Zavadova, third in the women’s 200m IM), the second session saw the entry of two new countries in the “Olympic club”: Israel (Yakov Toumarkin, second in the men’s 10m backstroke) and Portugal (Ana de Pinho Rodrigues, third in the women’s 50m breaststroke). This is also what the Youth Olympic Games are about: a platform for future performances at the highest level, in an atmosphere where it is possible to “breathe” some of the pressure of the traditional Olympic Games.

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