Diving Grand Prix wraps up in Rostock (GER); good medal hauls for China and Germany

Day 1 (February 27)

Men’s 3m springboard

The first final of the competition ended with victory for Shixin Li (CHN) with a score of 486.15. Li took a solid lead from his first dive, a forward 3 1/2 somersault pike for which he received scores of 9.0 almost across the board. His performance was consistent, letting him retain a steady advantage over the silver medallist Pavlo Rozenberg (GER). Rozenberg’s performance allowed him to keep up with Li until the fourth dive, but his sub-standard final dive was not enough to nudge him to the top. He accepted silver with a score of 482.55. In third was Malaysia’s Ken Nee Yeoh with 452.95 points.

Women’s 10m platform

The platform event was in the hands of Russia’s Yulia Koltunova, with a final score of 331.00. Her main competitor was Canada’s Roseline Filion, who would end up in second with a score of 320.70. Initially it was Filion in the lead after an excellent opening inward 2 ½ somersault pike, but Koltunova quickly surpassed her with strong second and third dives of a higher degree of difficulty (DD). Her third dive, an inward 3 ½ somersault tuck, was especially nice, and she followed it with a solid finish. The bronze medallist was Ni Chen (CHN) with 316.40.

Day 2 (February 28)

Men’s synchro platform

The encounter between the two strongest pairings in this event – Patrick Hausding and Sascha Klein (GER) and Huian Su and Yang Xiang (CHN) – provided for good competition and high scoring. Hausding and Klein were the victors by a decent margin – managing 444.12 for the 432.99 garnered by Su and Xiang. The Germans always held the lead, not particularly surprising since they performed well a dive line-up that was of a considerably higher DD. The German routine was highlighted by a steady, well-rewarded back 3 ½ somersault pike, while the Chinese treated the audience to an excellent inward 3 ½ somersault tuck half way through the final. The Russian duo of Aleksey Kravchenko and Dmitry Dobroskok took bronze with 422.70.

Women’s 3m springboard final

The battle for the top of the podium in this event was played out between two of China’s divers, Lin Qu, who won with 339.65, and Jun Dong, the silver medallist with 326.40. Qu took the lead from the outset with a good opening dive – an inward 2 ½ somersault pike. She proceeded to simply outperform her rivals by a safe margin, until perhaps the final rounds, when Dong pulled off two closing efforts that might have been a threat to the leader had they come earlier. But it was two late to upset the standing and Qu secured the gold. Well behind in third was Germany’s Katja Dieckow with 292.20.

Day 3 (March 1)

Women’s synchro platform

On Day 3 the event’s double medal winners started to emerge, beginning with the results of the women’s platform synchro, in which the Canadian pair of Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion took gold with a score of 312.30 (giving Filion her second Grand Prix medal after her silver in the platform), while the Chinese pair of Ni Chen and Lindan Deng won silver with 300.36 (giving Chen a second medal after her bronze on Day 1). The Chinese pair started strong and could have taken the win had they maintained their momentum, but relatively weak fourth and fifth dives relegated them to second. The Canadians meanwhile, performed steadily throughout their line-up, with less highs and lows but consistently safe scores for increasingly difficult dives. Just behind, third place went to Germany’s Nora Subschinski and Josephine Moller with 298.20.

Men’s 3m synchro

This event brought a second gold medal to China’s Shixin Li, after he won the individual 3m on Day 1. This time he prevailed with his partner Minghong Wu with a score of 421.35. The pair far outshined even their closest rivals, namely the Ukrainian duo of Iiilya Kvasha and Oleksiy Prygorov, who took silver with 386.07, and the pairing of Rossharisham Roslan and Ken Nee Yeoh, who took bronze in 383.58. With these results, Malaysian diver Yeoh also picked up a second bronze medal, after also winning bronze for the 3m individual event.

Women’s 3m synchro

Once again it was a clean win for the Chinese; this time with the pairing of Jun Dong and Lin Qu, both of whom thus picked up their second medal of the event after both climbed the podium in the 3m event. The Chinese finished with a top score of 311.10, ahead of the silver medal finish of Katja Dieckow and Nora Subschinski with 281.40 and the bronze medallists Raisa Geurtsen and Iris Janssen of Netherlands in 258.24. The German pair started strong but the Chinese progressively imposed their dominance and finished well, while Dieckow and Subschinski’s performance concluded with a weak dive that gave them two marks of 4.0. The DD was equal for both of the top-two routines. In the end, both Germans could be satisfied with having earned a second medal: Dieckow had already taken the 3m bronze, while Subschinski, in a nice show of versatility, also had the platform synchro bronze.

Men’s 10m platform

The last event of the competition was a good one for the home team, with Patrick Hausding (GER) taking gold relatively easily over China’s Liguang Yang (480.00) and Yang Xiang (476.75). Competition reached a high level. Hausding was in top-form, earning marks of 10.0 for his final two dives and securing victory. But Yang also produced a great performance, especially with his last dive, a back 2 ½ somersault 2 ½ twists pike (DD 3.8), which gave him mostly 9.0s and over 100 points - the highest scoring dive of the final. With this result, Hausding and Xiang also joined the club of double medallists in Rostock.