Huixia, Yajie take early gold for China at FINA/NVC Diving World Series

Sport360 staff 21:44 17/03/2016
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  • Liu Huixia and Si Yajie take 10m Synchro Platform gold.

    The ever impressive Chinese diving team kicked off their FINA/NVC Diving World Series Dubai 2016 campaign this morning in their usual manner, taking the first two gold medals on offer.

    Chinese world champions Liu Huixia and Si Yajie took gold in the 10m synchro of the first round at the FINA/NVC Diving World Series in Beijing last weekend and Thursday morning saw a continuation of their winning streak with another first place in Dubai’s leg of the same event. The pair were closely followed by Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion of Canada, who took silver following a strong start in the first dive but were unable to fight off the Chinese pair, who won by 6.66 points.

    Speaking of their victory, Huixia said, “I feel good about our win, but we are not so satisfied with our performance because I was not feeling so good owing to an arm injury. I hope that for the next round, I can feel good and have a great performance.”

    The second event of the morning was the men’s 10m synchro platform and the Chinese pair of Lin Yue and Chen Aisen dominated from the outset, outscoring all teams with a second landslide victory following the success of their winning performance in Beijing. Scoring a colossal 466.50 points, the Chinese duo lead from the start gaining strength with each successive dive placing, them a solid 37.59 points ahead of runners up. British pair, Tom Daley and Daniel Goodfellow made a progressive rise into 2nd place versus their Beijing finish in 3rd place last weekend.

    The lead up to the Dubai leg of the competition has been a challenge as Tom Daley revealed, “It feels good considering we haven’t had the chance to train this week as I’ve been sick owing to illness. We have one more individual event left here in Dubai, so the focus is on getting fit and ready for that.”

    In the first event of the evening session, the women’s 3m synchro springboard final, He Zi and Wang Han of China remain undefeated following last week’s result. In what was a clear first position ranking for all but their last dive, where they fell to fifth place, China overall remain unaffected by this lapse. Scoring a total of 328.80 points, a cool 11.85 points clear of runner’s up, Italy, China have once again secured themselves a strong lead.

    Italy held a very steady 2nd place ranking with springboard duo Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape taking silver, knocking Ukraine into 3rd position vs. previous week.

    Second World Series stop here in Dubai and our second medal! Came away with a silver with @tomdaley1994 ?

    A photo posted by Daniel Goodfellow (@dannielgoodfellow) on

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