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
China kept one of the longest aquatic Olympic gold streaks going with a gold-silver sweep of the women’s 3-meter springboard diving event, courtesy of Shi Tingmao and He Zi.
Shi, 24 years old, wins her second gold medal of the Olympic so far, scoring 406.05 to add to her gold from the synchronized 3-meter event. She was remarkably consistent, scoring an exact 81.00 points in rounds 1, 2, and 5, and hovering right around 80 points in the other two rounds as well.
Her win was all but capped with an 84-point reverse 2 1/2 in round 3 – that pulled Shi ten points ahead of He, who had pushed for the win early on.
He held on for her second-straight Olympic silver in this event. The 25-year-old was tied for first after both round 1 and round 2, matching Shi’s 81 point dives. He wasn’t able to match the round 3 onslaught, though, and fell to a solid second.
He scored 387.90 for silver, the same medal she pulled out at the 2012 London Olympics in this event. And though silver wasn’t the ultimate prize in the diving well, He might have gotten an even bigger prize on the awards podium: her boyfriend Qin Kai (himself a Chinese diver in Rio) gave her a ring. The two have been together for 6 years and will now be married after He tearfully accepted Qin’s proposal.
China has now won the women’s 3-meter springboard at 8 straight Olympics, stretching back to 1988. Five of those eight wins have now been gold-silver sweeps for the Chinese – 1988, 2000, 2004, 2012 and 2016. The last time China lost this event was 1984, when Canadian Sylvie Bernier topped two Americans in Los Angeles.
Italy’s Tania Cagnotto notched bronze with 372.80 points, besting Canada’s Jennifer Abel by five.
Chinese do this in diving all the time.