China’s goal is to win gold medals in every event. Not just in diving, but every event. Silver is just not acceptable. That is not conjecture, but a stated fact by both athletes, coaches and administrators.
A building block of that goal is the sport of diving, where they have dominated since first competing in the Olympics in 1984. A sweep of the eight diving medals would likely not be lauded as a spectacular accomplishment, but one that was expected. The nation of 1.3 billion took a step towards that ideal by winning the first medal of the diving competition – the women’s synchronized springboard, Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia easily won the event by 19.89 points over the Russian team of Yulia Pakhalina and Anastasia Pozdnyakova.
Not that this competition was ever really in doubt, Guo and Wu won this event in 2004 in Athens, and China has not lost a world championship in synchronized springboard since 1998. Ironically, the last time China lost was to a Russian team that included silver medalist Pakhalina.
The Chinese duo were dominant throughout the contest, widening their lead after each round, much to the delight of the partisan crowd at the Water Cube.
The closest the other competitors came was when Americans Kelci Bryant and Ariel Rittenhouse were tied with the Chinese after the first round. From that point on, it was a race for silver and bronze.
With Guo and Wu clearly the best, the Russian team took a solid hold on second after the fourth round, and the rest of the field battled for bronze on the final dive. The U.S. and German teams were tied, with the Australians and Italians three and four points further back.
The German team of Ditte Kotzian and Heike Fischer hit their last dive, a reverse 2 ½ somersaults in pike, for execution scores of 8, and synchronization scores of 8.5 and 9, to finish four points ahead of the U.S. squad. Bryant and Rittenhouse, who followed the Germans in the diving order, received scores of 7.5 for execution, and 8 to 9 for synchronization, on a back 2 ½ somersaults in pike position. Not a bad dive, but not good enough to win a medal. The Australian team of Briony Cole and Sharleen Stratton finished fifth, and Noemi Batki and Francesca Dallape’ of Italy, finished sixth.
Despite finishing out of the medals, the U.S. team has to consider their synchronized debut as a success, having failed to qualify a team for either the 2000 or 2004 Olympics Games. The 19 year-old Bryant and 17 year-old Rittenhouse plan to compete as a team in 2012, and this experience, and near miss, should continue to fuel their Olympic aspirations.
Event Notes:
- With her third career gold and fifth career Olympic medal, China’s Guo Jingjing closes in on the record of four gold medals by former Chinese diver Fu Mingxia. She has tied Fu for the most Olympic diving medals with five, and needs only to win gold in the individual springboard to eclipse that record, and then head into her announced retirement following the conclusion of the Olympic Games.
- Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia were the only competitors to receive a perfect score of 10 during the competition. The pair received two 10’s from the synchronization judges on their second round dive, a back dive in pike position.
- With her silver medal, Yulia Pakhalina becomes one of only six female divers to win four Olympic diving medals, and the most by any diver from the Russian Federation.
- Guo Jingjing / Wu Minxia (China) – 343.50
- Anastasia Pozdnyakova / Yulia Pakhalina (Russia) – 323.61
- Ditte Kotzian / Heike Fischer (Germany) – 318.90
- Kelci Bryant / Ariel Rittenhouse (United States) – 314.40
- Briony Cole / Sharleen Stratton (Australia) – 311.34
- Noemi Batki / Francesca Dallape’ (Italy) – 296.70
- Mariya Voloshchenko / Anna Pysmenska (Ukraine) – 293.10
- Tandi Gerrard / Hayley Sage (Great Britain) – 278.25
Women’s Olympic Synchronized Springboard Diving Results
