Dubai: The second day of competition in the FINA/NVC Diving World Series Dubai 2014 kicked off on Friday morning at the Hamdan Sports Complex, with the three-metre springboard individual semi-finals for women and men.
Day one of the competition on Thursday saw world-class diving action, with the dominant Chinese team taking three of the four gold medals on offer, winning the 10m men’s and women’s synchro and the 3m women’s synchro finals.
In the final event on the day’s programme, Germany’s Patrick Hausding and Stephan Feck produced the surprise result of the day with victory in the men’s 3m springboard synchro.
The Chinese bounced back on Friday morning, though, qualifying first in the men’s and women’s 3m individual springboard events ahead of the evening’s finals. The top three competitors in each semi-final moved into the final.
On Thursday morning, China had started their golden run, taking gold in both the men’s and women’s 10m platform synchronised events. Shi Tingmao and Wu Minxia then added to China’s gold-medal haul with a spectacular performance in the women’s 3m synchro, taking their team to three from three.
While the large crowd expected a Chinese clean sweep, the German team of Hausding and Feck had other ideas and took an early lead in the men’s 3m synchro. They were quickly overtaken by China until the Chinese faltered on their third dive and dropped to fifth. Yuan Cao And Yue Lin then produced the dive of the competition in the next round, scoring 89.25, but it was not enough to recover the gold medal position. A consistent set of solid dives saw Hausding and Feck finish the 3m synchro final with a total of 432.12, edging the Chinese by 8.19 points.
The German pair were happy with the win, particularly Feck, who had never previously beaten the Chinese.
“This is great, it’s good for our confidence,” said Feck. “I know they’re not the top Chinese 3m pair but it’s still good to get the gold. We know that a 432 score will place us well in any competition.”
“Consistency was the key, we are all so close that whoever misses a dive will miss the gold medal, so we are happy we produced solid dives,” added Hausding. “The Chinese used to be so far ahead of everybody, it’s hard for them to improve a lot more and everyone else is getting better so it’s very close now. There’s not much difference between second and eighth in these competitions so you have to be very consistent and we did that tonight.”
Ukraine’s Illya Kvasha and Oleksandr Gorshkovozav, who took bronze in the 3m synchro event in the first event of the Diving World Series in Beijing last week, collected another bronze, finishing with 416.70 ahead of Mexico’s Jahir Ocampo and Rommel Pacheco with 403.14. Ocampo and Pacheco had been in the silver medal position in round three but could not match the strong final dives of the other teams and fell out of medal contention.
The United States’ David Boudia and Troy Dumais started well but slipped to fifth and finished with 392.88, with Malaysia’s Ahmad Amsyar Azman and Tze Liang Ooi in sixth with 358.92.
In the women’s 3m synchro final, the result was never in doubt. The Chinese current world champions Shi and Wu went into first place with their first dive and never relinquished the position. They outclassed the rest of the field and finished with 335.40, 48.90 points ahead of Mexico’s Laura Sanchez and Arantxa Chavez, who started slowly but performed consistently to finish with 286.50.
In a tight finish, only six points separated third and sixth places. The Italian team of Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape missed one dive but managed to hang on for the bronze with 279.30, with Malaysia’s Jun Hoong Cheong and Yan Yee Ng finishing only 4.5 points behind in fourth (274.80).
“We only started back in December so we are getting back into competition,” said Cagnotto. “We missed one dive and that cost us but overall we are feeling good. The Chinese are many points in front so we have to be consistent all the time to catch them.”
Canada’s Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware could not produce their silver medal-winning form from Beijing and finished less than half a point behind the Malaysians with 274.32 to take fifth, only just ahead of the US’ Amanda Burke and Deidre Freeman (273.30).
Russia’s Kristina Ilinykh and Maria Polyakova were seventh with 261.60 and Ukraine’s Olena Fedorova and Anastasiia Nedobiga eighth with 260.70.
“It was truly a world-class display of diving today, and a wonderful first day of competition,” said Dr Ahmad Al Sharif, Secretary General of Dubai Sports Council. “It is exciting to see this standard of diving again, and we look forward to enjoying the rest of the competition.”
The final day of competition on Saturday sees the 10m platform semi-finals from 10am-12noon, followed by the finals from 5-7pm.
The UAE Swimming Federation will offer children the opportunity to compete on Saturday in a series of fun 50m swimming races. The ‘Fast Fifties’ will be swum in a 25m format and will be held from 3pm-4.30pm. It is open to all beginner swimmers aged eight to 12. The races will be in the following format: 50m breaststroke, 50m butterfly and 4x50m individual medley relay. Registration can be done on the day or in advance at uaeswimmingfederation@gmail.com.
Tickets for the series are available at the door at the Hamdan Sports Complex on Emirates Road. Tickets are Dh40 per day, while entry is free for children under 12.
