Chinese stars grab World Cup golds
China’s Chen Yiwen claimed the women’s 3m springboard title, while her compatriot Lian Junjie won the men’s 10m platform gold at the World Aquatics Diving World Cup in Berlin on Saturday.
Fresh from her title triumph at the first stop of the series in Montreal earlier this month, two-time 3m springboard world champion Chen top the scoresheet with 356.40 points. Runner-up Maddison Keeney of Australia executed the hardest dive in the final round with a 3.4 degree of difficulty to score 81.60, 17 points ahead of bronze-medal winner Sarah Bacon of the United States.
Despite dominating, Chen was not satisfied with her performance. “The World Cup legs take place after the world championships and those make me feel pretty tired. I’ve had many competitions but not enough time to review my dives,” she said.
Lian led after each round and broke the 500-point barrier to win gold, scoring at least 90 points on each of his last four dives. Rylan Wiens of Canada took silver, and the 2023 world champion Cassiel Rousseau of Australia claimed bronze.
“I did a really good job today and I’m pretty happy about the scores,” said the 23-year-old Lian. “I hope to earn the chance to compete in both the individual and synchro events at the Paris Olympics.”
Chinese divers were also the favorites to win the individual events on Sunday, with triple world champion Wang Zongyuan leading the men’s 3m springboard preliminaries, while the reigning world and Olympic champion Quan Hongchan qualified for the women’s 10m platform final as the top finisher.