Diving Grand Prix, Day 4: Final day on Gold Coast delivers quality diving

The best performance of the FINA Gold Coast Grand Prix came on the final day of competition, with Chinese divers Zigan Huang and Xiaohu Tai wowing the big crowd in the men’s platform final.

Tai scored an incredible 102 points in windy conditions with his fourth dive of the competition, but eventually fell just .05 short of taking the gold from Huang.

Both divers posted scores exceeding 500; Huang finished on 511.70, while Tai posted 511.65.

“I’m very satisfied with my performance today,” Tai said.

“I didn’t focus on the wind, I just focused on my dives. I’m happy with my performance this year, I’m excited to have the chance to compete in Rio next year.”

There was also an impressive Chinese gold medal for Han Wang in the women’s springboard final.

It was her first Grand Prix gold medal for 2015.

“Because of the weather you could see many divers struggling with the wind, there were a lot of mistakes,” Wang said.

“Divers need to make adjustments accordingly, but not big changes. I’m really happy with my performances this year, I’ve learned quite a lot.”

Earlier the Chinese dominance was broken with wins to Germany and Australia in synchro events.

2008 Beijing silver medalists, Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausding, showed they are on their way back to their best form with a solid win in the men’s platform final.

The German team finished on 430.62, well ahead of China’s Cao Lizhi and Zigan Huang on 414.60.

“It was a pretty awesome competition, it was a little bit windy, so it was a little bit difficult,” Klein said.

“We’re very satisfied with our 430 points, for a pre-season competition, that’s really good,” Hausding said.

World championship bronze medalists, Samantha Mills and Esther Qin, continued their strong 2015 form with a nail-biting win in the women’s 3-metre synchro.

The Australians were involved in a close tussle with China’s Lin Qu and Han Wang, with the home team holding their nerve to post a narrow win, 310.80 to 309.30.

“I thought the Chinese were always going to be in front of us, I didn’t really want to look at the score,” Mills said.

“I just really wanted to have our first competition back after worlds, and just have fun with it. When I saw we were one point ahead, I thought yeah, we’ll take that.”

The final gold medal of the competition went to Malaysia’s Yan Yee Ng and Muhammad Syafiq Puteh in the mixed synchro.

“We didn’t really train for this mixed synchro, so it’s a very unexpected result,” Ng said.

“It’s quite challenging, so it feels great.”

China finished the competition on top of the leaderboard with five gold and three silver medals, with host nation Australia finishing second with two gold, three silver and three bronze.