BARCELONA, Spain, 16 July 2003 — Alexander Dobroskok snatched the men’s 3m springboard gold medal from fellow Russian, and two-time defending champion Dmitry Sautin, at the world swimming championships here yesterday.
China’s Peng Bo took silver, with Sautin, who won the 3m synchronized springboard title with Dobroskok on Sunday, taking bronze. Dobroskok claimed the gold on his final jump with a combined 788.37 points ahead of Peng on 780.84, with 29-year-old Sautin, who had been leading the four previous rounds, notching up 776.64.
“I still can’t believe I’ve won. Dmitry Sautin is the greatest for all of us,” said Dobroskok. It was a bitter disappointment for Sautin, who had lead the preliminaries and semifinals, only to fall at the last hurdle.
“I failed to make a good entry on my last dive and if you make a mistake entering there’s nothing you can do,” said the man from Moscow. “But life is life, sport is sport, business is buisness, we’re very good friends and have been since the very beginning and it will stay that way,” said Sautin. But his failure to win a sixth world title acted in his friend’s favor with 21-year-old Dobroskok winning his first major individual title after recent wins in the FINA Grand Prix season. “For me this is the most prestigious win,” he said.
Cats Eyes Dutch
Gold Rush
Dutch swimming coach Andre Cats is confident his stars Pieter van den Hoogenband and Inge de Bruijn can inspire his team to a gold medal rush at the world swimming championships here. Following the euphoria of the Sydney Olympics performances of van den Hoogenband and de Bruijn, the Dutch suffered a mediocre 2001 world championships - that is at least on their men’s side.
Of their seven swimming medals achieved in Fukuoka, the three gold were claimed singlehandedly by triple Olympic champion de Bruijn in the 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly races. For Olympic champion over 100m and 200m van den Hoogenband, there were to be just three silver, in both races, and also the 50m freestyle.
