MONTREAL, 23 July 2005 — Alexandre Despatie produced another precision performance to claim his second gold medal in three days at the world swimming championships on Thursday, winning the men’s one-meter springboard.
Victorious in the three-metre springboard on Tuesday, the Montreal-native thrilled his hometown crowd for a second time with an acrobatic display to see off a determined challenge from two Chinese world champions with a winning score of 489.69.
Xu Xiang, the defending gold medallist in the event, settled for silver with 445.68 while his team mate Wang Feng, the 2001 champion, took bronze with 445.56.
“When I started, I just never imagined it would end up like this, with two gold medals,” Despatie said.
“After the three-metre, I thought OK, I’ve done my job, which I did, and would enjoy the one-metre and I ended up champion again.
“To be here today and win is great.”
It was the third gold and fourth medal in total that Canada has garnered from the diving pool in an unexpected show of strength that has upset the form book in a competition China was expected to dominate.
Winners of a record six of eight gold medals at the Athens Olympics, Chinese divers had looked poised to stage another all-out assault on the podium in Montreal after sweeping the first two events.
But since the opening day, the Chinese have found their way to the top of the podium blocked by a squad of energized Canadians.
The world champion in the 10m platform but unable to defend his title here because of a back injury, Despatie turned his attention to three-metre and one-meter springboard events but vowed to return to his specialty next year.
That versatility and skill has not gone unnoticed by the Chinese, who designated the talented Canadian as enemy number one in the run in to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“For sure Alexandre is the biggest enemy right now for Chinese diving team,” Xu said. “Ten-metre, three-meter, one-meter.”
With world titles in all three individual events on his resume and improving in the synchronized competition, Despatie expects to be a multiple threat in every event, in every competition between now and 2008.
At just 20-years-old and yet to reach his prime as a diver, Despatie possesses the fearlessness needed to work off the 10m platform and the strength and gracefulness necessary to excel on the springboard.
That elegance and a large measure of concentration were on full display in the three-meter and one-meter events here with dives in both competitions scoring marks of perfect 10.
“Next year I will be back at the 10 metre, no doubt about that,” warned Despatie. “If the one-metre is in the next championships I will compete in that too.
“Now I have won all three at different times and I don’t know if anyone has done that.”
Until the 10m platform final on Saturday, Despatie will in fact own all three individual diving world titles, something no other diver has ever done.
In the day’s only other medal final, Virginie Dedieu of France successfully defended her synchronized solo event title.
The Fenchwoman wowed the judges with her playful routine and explosive power, posting a winning mark of 99.001, that included five perfect 10s for artistic merit and two more for technical.
Natalia Ischenko of Russia took the silver with 98.250 and Spain’s Gemma Mengual the bronze with 97.417.
Phelps and Hackett Lock Horns
Meantime, Michael Phelps and Grant Hackett, two men who have taken completely different paths to swimming greatness, are suddenly poised to collide when the 11th world championships get under way in Montreal tomorrow.
The American Phelps and Hackett of Australia are already assured of their places in their hall of swimming greats but their quest for sporting immortality has brought them face to face in the most eagerly awaited contest of the championships.
Not content with winning six gold medals at last year’s Athens Olympics, Phelps is chasing a record eight titles in Montreal, two more than Ian Thorpe’s world title haul in Japan four years ago and one more than Mark Spitz’s legendary haul from the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Hackett, the undisputed king of long-distance swimming, is chasing his own slice of history, bidding to become the first swimmer to win the same event at four world championships. He is also chasing an unprecedented four freestyle titles from 200m to 1500m as well as striving to overtake Thorpe and Jenny Thompson’s record of 13 career medals at the world championships. He currently has 12.
Both men are almost certain to walk away with a stack of medals in Montreal but their individual clashes in the 200 metres and 400m freestyle will determine how many of them have that golden glitter.
Phelps gave up the chance of almost certain victories in two of his favourite events for the opportunity to challenge Hackett in the 400m.
The Australian, runner-up to Thorpe in the eight-lap event at the last three world championships, returned the compliment by agreeing to face Phelps in the 200m, an event the American is favourite to win.
“The statement, ‘The sky is the limit’, really is true,” Phelps said.
“The 400m is going to be a tough race. Hackett has been very, very dominant, very strong. It’s my job to step up and try to race him. I’ll try to go out after it and see what happens.”
Phelps and Hackett won’t have to wait long for their clash. The 400m, scheduled for Sunday night, is the first final of the eight-day, 40-event swimming programme.
Their clash has not only added a sense of drama to a championship diluted by the absence of so many reigning Olympic gold medallists - including Thorpe, Pieter van den Hoogenband, Inge de Bruijn, Gary Hall, Yana Klochkova and Amanda Beard - but has also increased the intense rivalry between the Australian and United States teams.
The competition between swimming’s two traditional superpowers has never been greater and when the championships end, the two countries will stage their own “duel in the pool in California”.
