China earns 8th diving gold of the world championships

The Chinese divers were marvelous. Tom Daley was even better. Banishing the memory of his Rio disappointment, the British diver captured his first individual medal at the world championships since 2009 with a thrilling victory over reigning Olympic champion Chen Aisen on Saturday.

Chen, diving just ahead of Daley, put the pressure on in the final round with a brilliant reverse 2½ somersaults with 2½ twists, barely making a ripple as he sliced through the water to receive four perfect 10s from the judges and nothing lower than a 9.5.

But Daley, facing away from the pool, launched himself off the tower for an equally dazzling back 3½ somersault pike. He released his legs, spotted the water and maneuvered his body into a perpendicular position for scores that matched Chen, including four 10s.

The winner led after all six rounds and finished with 590.95 points. Chen was next at 585.25, while his teammate Yang Jian settled for the bronze at 565.15.

Daley was one of the platform favorites at the Rio Olympics and led after the preliminaries. But he stunningly failed to advance to the final when he finished last out of 18 divers in the semifinals, with a score that was nearly 170 points worse that the prelims.

China did earn two more gold medals Saturday, including its eighth victory in diving.

Li Zheng and Wang Han finished first in the synchronized mixed 3-meter event with 323.70 points. On a busy day, Daley teamed with Grace Reid to take the silver (308.04), while the bronze went to Jennifer Abel and Francois ImbeauDulac of Canada (297.72).

China again dominated the diving competition, finishing with 15 medals overall — three times as many as runner-up Russia — but came up short of its 10 gold medals in Kazan two years ago.

The Chinese also took a synchronized swimming gold in the women’s team free. Ukraine settled for silver and Japan claimed the bronze. Russia, which has won six synchro swimming golds at the championships, did not enter a team.

In a related development, world governing body FINA voted to change the name of the sport to artistic swimming.