Young squad 'has room for improvement'

The diving competition of the 17th FINA World Championships concluded with Tom Daley's sensational win in the men's 10m platform on Saturday as powerhouse China bagged eight out of the 13 gold medals on offer.

The 2009 world champion Daley led the final since the first round, but met a strong challenge from China's Olympic champion Chen Aisen.

However, Daley, the golden boy of British diving and something of a celebrity in his homeland, kept aggressive and calm, winning with a total score of 590.95 points. Chen took silver, only 5.7 points behind, while China's Yang Jian was third with 565.15 points.

Earlier, the 23-year-old Daley said he was having fun with teammate Grace Reid, as they took the silver in the mixed 3m springboard, scoring 308.04 points.

China's Wang Han and Li Zheng took gold with 323.70 points. Jennifer Abel and Francois Imbeau-Dulac from Canada finished third on 297.72 points.

China was two golds shy of its haul in Kazan, Russia two years ago, but team manager Zhou Jihong said she was quite satisfied with the performances of her young divers.

"The average age of our team is 21. Although we have four Olympic champions in the squad, all are still quite young other than the 25-year-old Shi Tingmao.

"Our athletes still have a lot of room for improvement, and they need to compete in more tournaments."

The curtain was also drawn on the synchronized swimming events after the last two finals took place on Saturday.

China won its first ever world-championship gold in the sport as it took away the team free-combination title.

With Russia absent from the event, China, which has won two silver medals in team events at previous worlds, took advantage to clinch the title with a score of 96.1000 points.

Ukraine, with 94.0000 points, was second, while Japan, on 93.2000 points, was third.

Xinhua

(China Daily 07/24/2017 page24)