KAZAN, Russia (AP) — China dominated the first mixed three-meter synchronized springboard diving event at the world championships on Sunday.
The experienced Wang Han and her 17-year-old partner Yang Hao scored an unbeatable 339.90 points, posting the best-scoring dives in three of the five rounds as each of their rivals made mistakes.
Yang said his friendship with Wang, a two-time world silver medalist tasting gold for the first time, had been crucial. “She looked after me and made sure that I wasn’t worried,” he said through a translator, adding that Wang was like “a sister” to him.
The win is China’s ninth in diving at the championships, matching the number when the country topped the medal table at the last championships in Barcelona in 2013. One event, the men’s 10m platform, remains and takes place later Sunday.
Second place at the Aquatics Palace went to the Canadian duo of Jennifer Abel and Francois Imbeau-Dulac, who started slowly but snatched silver with an 80.58 final dive – the highest score of the competition – for a total of 317.01.
That was just enough to beat Italy’s 17-time European champion Tania Cagnotto and her partner Maicol Verzotto on 315.30.
“It was a weird day for us. The first two dives didn’t go as well as we wanted,” Imbeau-Dulac said. “We just wanted to finish on a great score.”
For Abel, the result was a morale-lifter after a disappointing sixth place in the women’s 3m event on Saturday, when she made a major error on her final dive.
“It was really hard to get up this morning,” she said. “Francois saw some tears, a lot of tears, even during practice and before the event.”
Mixed-gender diving events are a new addition to the world championships, with three on the program in Kazan. Synchronizing men’s and women’s jumps is tricky, said Cagnotto.
“It’s not easy to find a partner that jumps like you because the men jump higher than the women,” she said. “It’s a nice event, which can go really well in the future.”
There are two paths to victory in mixed springboard diving, she added. Either a duo can include a male diver more used to the 10m platform and with a less powerful takeoff than most springboard divers, or a “really, really strong” woman, she said.
Asked about mixed diving’s potential to join the Olympic program, Cagnotto said: “Why not? Yes, it could be.”
