Chinese diving stars Chen Yiwen and Chen Yuxi capped off impressive showings at the World Championships, walking away with three gold medals each.
Yuxi reigns queen of the 10m platform. The 19-year-old dominated the individual event, scoring a monster 430.50 in the final. This placed her 63.40 points ahead of the silver medalist, Germany’s Pauline Pfeiff.
In the synchro event, Chen Yuxi pulled off an incredible four-peat with her new partner Zhang Minjie. In addition to the past four World gold medals in the event, Chen Yuxi is also the two-time reigning Olympic Champion, making her undefeated at major competitions this decade.
Chen Yuxi’s third win came from the mixed 3m & 10m event, also one of Chen Yiwen’s medals. The two ladies teamed up with top male Chinese springboard and platform divers Chen Zilong and Cao Yuan to put together a 466.25 win, 40 points over second place Mexico.
Chen Yiwen dominated the 3m springboard in the same way Chen Yuxi dominated the platform. In addition to her mixed team win, she also won the individual and the synchro 3m events. She also won gold at both of these events last year in Paris. The synchro 3m, this also marks a four-peat across World Championships.
The Cueva twins of Mexico, Lia Yatzil and Mia Zazil, took bronze in the 3m synchro event at just 14 years of age. They were the youngest medallists of the competition.
Madison Keeney, a 29-year-old veteran out of Australia, found her way back to the top of the 1 meter event for the first time in 8 years. Keeney and Cassiel Rousseau took a close silver in the mixed 3m event. The winners were Italians Chiara Pellacani and Matteo Santoro, making the 18-year-old Santoro the first male Italian diving World Champion in 50 years.
The other mixed event, the platform, came down to .06 points between China and North Korea. The Chinese duo of Xie Peiling and Zhu Yongxin started out in 12, but they catapulted up to first on the fifth of sixth rounds. Their chances looked good, but on their last dive, North Koreans Wi Hyon Cho and Jin Mi Jo put up a dive nine points higher than that of the Chinese. Still, China eked out a win, 323.04-322.98. It marked the narrowest win margin of the Championships.
