DWS 2009: China dominates competition in Sheffield

The British Gas Diving Team started off their campaign for success with the debut of their new 10m Platform Synchro partnership of Tom Daley and Max Brick and they looked confident as they took to the boards alongside Olympic medallists and world-class divers. The 10m synchro event didn’t fail to impress the crowds within Ponds Forge as China debuted their new partnership of Cao Yuan and Zhang Yuanquan. At the tender ages of 14 and 15 years old the duo stood alongside Olympic silver medallists Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausding and Olympic finalist Tom Daley.

The Chinese pair led from their first dive and Daley and Brick lay in third place just behind Klein and Hausding as they entered the second round. Yuan and Yuanquan extended their lead to eight points after their Back 2 ½ Somersaults 1 ½ Twists piked, which scored 9s and 9.5s. The duo were impressing the crowd in Sheffield but it wasn’t until their fifth round dive that they showed their true talent. They performed their Back 3 ½ Somersaults tucked to near perfection as six scores of 10 flashed onto the score board. They dropped marks with only one judge as they awarded a score of nine and ruined the pair’s chance of perfect scores.

Daley and Brick dropped their fifth round dive as the missed their entries and fell down to fifth place. Klein and Hausding lay behind Yuan and Yuanquan after the fifth round followed closely by the Cuban team of Jose Guerra and Jeinkler Aguirre. The Chinese pair again impressed with their final dive (Back 2 ½ Somersaults 2 ½ Twists piked) and took their first international gold medal with a total of 494.70, which would have taken the gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Qin Kai (CHN)

“This was our first international competition,” Yuanquan said. “We were aiming to just do our best and we got the best results from that. We were nervous going into the competition especially about competing with the Olympic silver medallists but we were just excited about competing. The Back 3 ½ Somersault dive was our normal performance but we are happy to have got those scores. The competition is almost the same as our Chinese nationals but we just knew we had to focus on what we are going to work hard to get to the 2012 Olympics. We are going onto compete in Mexico and we will continue to try hard. We hope to get all tens on our Back 3 ½ there but we know we need to try hard to ensure that.”

The silver medal was taken by the Cuban team after scoring well on their Back 2 ½ Somersaults 1 ½ Twists piked. They finished with a score of 443.46. Klein and Hausding took bronze with a final score of 437.10 points. The British Gas Diving duo finished in fifth place overall with a score of 411.84.

The men’s 3m Springboard final saw Olympic champion, Qin Kai (China), show his true class as he dominated the final from his first dive. Kai scored 9s in the first round and this proved a warning for the rest of the field as he performed all of his dives consistently to win gold – his second gold medal of the series. The Chinese 3m Synchro Olympic Champion’s closest competition came in the form of Troy Dumais (USA). Although it was Mexican Yahel Castillo that lay in second place after the second round of dives.

Castillo dropped his third dive (Back 2 ½ Somersaults piked) and Dumais capitilised after performing his Forward 2 ½ Somersaults 2 Twists piked well to score 8.5s. The American Olympic finalist looked set to be the only athlete that could challenge Kai, but after Kai scored 9s with his fifth round dive (Inward 3 ½ Somersaults tucked) he put the gold medal out of Dumais’ reach.

The Olympic 3m Springboard bronze medallist, Qin, took the gold medal with 520.10 points, which is his highest score of the FINA Diving World Series so far.
“That was a very good performance and I'm happy with the score,” Qin said. “To get above 520 points shows how well I'm diving. It was a strong performance and I'm especially pleased with my 407C [Inward 3 ½ Somersaults tucked].”

Dumais took the silver medal with a score of 472.85 points and bronze went to Castillo after he scored 461.10. British Gas Diving team member Ben Swain finished in fourth place in the second semi-final with a score of 410.80.

The closest fought event in the competition proved to be the women’s 3m Synchro with the Russian team looking to ruin the Chinese clean sweep. The Russian team featured Olympic silver medallists, Yulia Pakhalina and Anastasia Pazdnyakova, and they looked in good form from the first round where they scored 9s for their synchronisation. The first round finished with Pakhalina and Pozdnyakova level with the Chinese team of He Zi and Wang Han. Zi and Han have been dominant throughout the series with gold medals in both Qatar and China and it wasn’t until the third round that they looked set to secure the same result in the UK. They scored 9s on their Inward 2 ½ Somersaults piked and carved out a lead over the Russian team.

After the fourth round the Chinese team secured the gold medal with an impressive Back 2 ½ Somersaults piked to move twenty points ahead of Russia. The Australian team of Briony Cole and Sharleen Stratton were close behind the Russian team with only five points separating them in third and second place respectively and the fight for silver went down to the final dive.

Pakhalina and Pozdnyakova performed their Back 1 ½ Somersaults 2 ½ Twists excellently to score 9s and 9.5s and took a total of 74.76 points. The Australian team dropped their Forward 2 ½ Somersaults 1 Twist piked to score a total of 67.50 leaving them over ten points behind the Russian team.

China’s Zi and Han scored a total of 332.70 to take their third gold of the series. “I feel really good with that performance,” Zi said. “We are new this year and it is our first time in Sheffield. We were really happy with our Inward 2 ½ Somersault piked dive.” The silver went to Pakhalina and Pozdnyakova with a score of 313.59 and bronze was won by Cole and Stratton with a score of 301.44.

The final event of the day saw Olympic Champion Xin Wang pushed all the way by her team-mate Li Kang for the gold medal in the women’s 10m Synchro. It was Wang that took the lead in the final but Kang fought hard to catch her and in the third round she executed her Back 3 ½ Somersaults tucked well to give herself a two point lead over Wang. After the fourth round only four points separated the Chinese team-mates and in the final dive Wang took the lead as Kang missed her Back 2 ½ Somersaults 1 ½ Twists piked. Wang took gold with 365.40 points.

Kang won the silver medal with a total of 364.25 points while bronze was won by Germany’s Nora Subshinski with a score of 326.05.