MONTREAL, 19 July 2005 — China pulled off a golden double on the opening day of the world swimming championships on Sunday, capturing the women’s 10-meter platform and men’s three-meter springboard synchronized diving events.
Winners of a record six of eight gold medals at last year’s Athens Olympics, Chinese divers look poised for another assault on the podium, with 15-year-old Jai Tong and 14-year-old Yuan Pei Lin leading the charge in the 10-metr platform.
Wang Feng and He Chong followed with a precision performance that provided China with a perfect start to the two-week competition, taking top spot in the three-meter event.
“We wish Chinese divers take all the gold medals and bring them back to China,” Wang said.
That could very well happen with China building towards the 2008 Beijing Olympics and their divers tightening their stranglehold on the discipline.
Right from the opening dive, both Chinese duos were never threatened, Jai and Yuan posting a five dive total of 351.60.
Australia’s Chantelle Newbery, a gold medal winner in the 10m individual platform in Athens and Loudy Tourky, bronze medalists in the same event, joined forces to take silver with 334.89.
“The Chinese have always been dominating throughout my career but it’s not impossible to beat them,” Newbery said. “But they are very difficult.”
Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion brightened a dreary opening day on Ile Ste Helene by giving the hosts their first medal, taking bronze with 328.80.
He and Wang turned in a polished effort, finishing with a winning mark of 384.42 that easily out-pointed Germany’s Tobias Schellenberg and Andreas Wels on 364.59.
After being shutout of the diving medals in Athens for the first time since 1912, Americans made a quick return to the podium with brothers Justin and Troy Dumas claiming bronze with a score of 360.27.
Earlier in the day, Russian teenager Larisa Ilchenko claimed the first gold medal of championships by successfully defending her women’s 5km open water title.
Under dark, rainy skies in front of a sparse crowd watching from the banks of the St. Lawrence, Ilchenko clocked a winning time of 55 minutes, 40.1 seconds, crossing 4.2 seconds clear of Margy Keefe of the United States. Edith Van Dijk completed the podium, the third place finish bringing the 31-year-old Dutchwoman’s world championship medal haul to 12, including four golds.
Thomas Lurz of Germany scored the narrowest of victories in the men’s 5km open event that saw all three medalists cross within 1.7 seconds of each other.
Lurz, gold medalist over 10km at the 2004 worlds, needed every centimeter of the 5km race to collect his second individual world title, edging Chip Peterson of the United States by 1.6 seconds with Italy’s Simone Ercoli 0.1 seconds further back.
“I tried to swim away but the last 300 meters were very hard, the American didn’t give up,” Lurz said.
“He (Peterson) fought and fought and I’m happy I won.”
Lost Luggage Leaves Aussie Swimmers High and Dry
Meantime, Australia’s swimmers found themselves short of some necessities when they arrived here for the World Championships on Sunday thanks to a massive loss of baggage en route from their training camp in Florida.
The Australian squad, captained by veteran Grant Hackett and buoyed by a strong women’s contingent, are expected to challenge the might of the Michael Phelps-led US team when competitive swimming gets underway here on July 24, after a week dedicated to diving, water polo, synchronized swimming and open water swimming.
After a solid training camp in Florida, however, the Aussies’ move to Montreal wasn’t entirely smooth as 41 bags went missing.
“It was a lot of sports science equipment, that’s a major concern,” said team spokesman Ian Hanson. “And some of the kids were swapping kit to be able to train.”
Looking on the bright side, Hanson said he’d been told that 94 percent of bags that go missing turn up.
“The women’s water polo players had 11 bags missing when they arrived. I think they all turned up,” he said.
Otherwise, Hanson said, the Australian swimmers appeared to be in good shape, although Nicholas Sprenger is still feeling the effects of a car accident after the Australian trials, where he qualified second behind Hackett in the 200m and 400m freestyle.
“He had really severe whiplash and struggled to turn his head,” Hanson said, adding that Sprenger was still unable to turn and dive.
“It started playing up in Orlando,” he said. “He’s just got to take softly, softly.”
