Chinese enjoy gold rush on Day 1 of Fina Diving World Series in Dubai

Chinese dominance of the Fina Diving World Series continued on Thursday as they took all four gold medals on offer on Day 1 of the second round at the Hamdan Sports Complex in Dubai.

While the Chinese were untroubled in their victories in the men’s 10-metre synchro and women’s 3m synchro, though, they faced tough competition in the other two finals, the women’s 10m synchro and men’s 3m synchro.

The first event of the day, the women’s 10m synchro, saw Canada’s Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion come within a whisker of gold, with China’s Chen Ruolin and Liu Huixia winning by just 3.39 points. The Malaysian duo of Jun Hoong Cheong and Mun Yee Leong took bronze, finishing 2.46 points ahead of Lara Tarvit and Melissa Wu of Australia.

The second event of the morning was the men’s 10m synchro platform, and the Chinese pair of Lin Yue and Cao Yuan dominated from the outset, outscoring all teams on all but one dive to finish with 484.23 points, 57.96 ahead of Mexico’s German Sanchez and Ivan Garcia.

In the first event in the evening session, the women’s 3m synchro final, the result was never in doubt. The Chinese world champions Shi Tingmao and Wu Minxia went into first place with their first dive and never relinquished that position. They outclassed the rest and finished with 338.10 points, 22.59 ahead of Canada’s Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware.

The Canadians were happy with their return to form after placing fifth in the previous round having missed a dive.

“We are really happy about the performance,” Abel said. “I think we did five really great dives, obviously there’s still dives we can do better, but we’re really satisfied.”

The final event of the evening, the men’s 3m synchro, produced another tight finish, and while China’s Qin Kai and Cao Yuan held the lead in every round, the rest of the world-class field pushed them hard.

With even the smallest error proving costly in this level of competition, the Russian team of Evgeny Kuznetsov and Ilya Zakharov found themselves in fifth place in Round 3. Three strong dives to finish, including the top score of the night, a 95.76, secured the silver.

“It was truly a world-class display of diving today, and a wonderful first day of competition” said Ahmed Al Falasi, the president of the UAE Swimming Federation.“It is exciting to see this standard of diving again, and we look forward to enjoying the rest of the competition.”

Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE