Rio 2016 Olympic Games
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Maria Lenk Aquatic Center
- Diving: Sunday, August 7 – Saturday, August 20, 2016
- Live stream schedule & links
- Schedule & Results
Absent from the 2012 Olympics, 2008 gold medalist Lin Yue returned to help China wins its 4th-straight gold medal in the men’s 10m Synchronized Platform Diving final.
The 25-year-old Lin and new partner Chen Aisen, 20, blew out the 10-meter synchro field, winning gold by a whopping 39 points.
That comes a day after Shi Tinmao and Wu Minxia won China’s fourth-straight gold in the women’s 3-meter springboard synchro event. China is now 2-for-2 in diving gold medals for these Olympics.
Lin and Chen had the field’s best-scoring dive in each of the 6 rounds, including an absurd 106-point effort in round 5. That dive, a forward with four and a half somersaults, scored three perfect 10s to go with seven 9.5s and a single 9.0.
The Chinese duo ended up scoring 496.98 points for the gold. That’s the most anyone has scored in the history of this event at the Olympics.
Lin and Chen are also the defending world champs in this event, having won in Kazan last summer. Lin and Huo Liang won the Olympic gold medal back in 2008, but gave way in 2012 to Cao Yuan and Zhang Yanquan, who won the London Olympics.
Rio silver went to Americans David Boudia and Steele Johnson, who used a big final dive to outlast Great Britain’s Tom Daley and Daniel Goodfellow.
Final Results:
- China (Chen Aisen & Lin Yue) – 496.98 – GOLD
- USA (David Boudia & Steele Johnson) – 457.11 – SILVER
- Great Britain (Tom Daley & Daniel Goodfellow) – 444.45 – BRONZE
- Germany – 438.42
- Mexico – 423.30
- Ukraine – 421.98
- Russia – 417.57
- Brazil – 368.52
Boudia and Johnson ripped a 95.04-point dive in the final round, the highest score of any non-China dive in the competition.
That Back 2 1/2 somersault, 2 1/2 twist came at the right time, making recompense for round 5, where the duo struggled a little with the same forward 4 1/2 that China nailed. The Americans only scored 85.47 on that round, 7 less than Great Britain and only 4th-best among the field for that round.
But the Brits still need a big last dive to make up the roughly 7.2-point deficit and pass the Americans for silver. The U.S. team hit that big 95-pointer and Great Britain could only answer with 89, locking those two nations into the minor medals.
That’s an improvement for both teams from 2012. Mexico’s Ivan Garcia and German Sanchez were the silver medalists in London, with the U.S. third and Great Britain fourth. But a rough dive in round 5 doomed Mexico, and that same duo from London fell to 5th.
