Daniel Restrepo Becomes First Non-Chinese YOGs Diving Champion

Diving at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics

• October 13th-17th, 2018
• Parque Polideportivo Roca, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Results

After the swimmers vacated the pool at the Parque Polideportivo Roca, the divers have moved in, with the first two sets of medals being awarded on the boys’ 3-meter springboard and the girls’ 10-meter platform.

China won all 4 gold medals at the prior two editions of the Youth Olympics. This year, with an expanded schedule of 5 events via the addition of a mixed team event, they’ve already lost their first event. On the boys’ 3-meter springboard, it was Colombia’s Daniel Restrepo who won gold, followed by Anthony Harding of Great Britain and Ruslan Ternovoi of Russia.

That was the first-ever Youth Olympics diving medal for all 3 countries.

China’s entrant in the event (each country was allowed just one) was Lian Junjie, who placed just 10th in the final. He had a dominating score of 573.10 in the preliminary round (almost 40 points better than anyone else), but a 0-point first dive, plus a very low-scoring (3.5s) 3rd dive, in the finals sunk his chances early. 17-year old Junjie was a gold medalist at last year’s World Championships in the mixed-gender 10m synchronized platform event.

In the women’s 10-meter platform event, China’s Lin Shan dominated the competition by over 60 points in the final. She beat out Sofiya Lyskun from Ukraine and Gabriela Garcia from Mexico to finish on top of the podium for China’s 3rd-straight gold in the event.

The silver-medalist Lyskun, a 16-year old, was the 2018 European Champion in the team event.