2023 World Aquatics Championships – DIVING
- July 14-22, 2023
- Fukuoka Prefectural Pool, Fukuoka, Japan
- Competition Results
The Chinese, the world’s dominant diving power (by far), jumped out to an early lead in the overall medals table at the World Aquatics Championships on Saturday by sweeping the gold medals in the first finals of the competition.
Combined with a silver in the women’s 1-meter springboard event, the Chinese have earned the maximum possible 4 medals through two days of competition in diving.
Women’s 1-Meter Springboard
- Lin Shan, China – 318.60
- Li Yajie, China – 306.35
- Aranza Vazquez, Mexico – 285.05
- Pamela Ware, Canada – 284.40
- Mahsa Eissa, Egypt – 264.55
Lin Shan won her third career World Championship gold medal on Saturday, but for the 21-year-old it was a first gold in an individual event. Her previous wins came in 2019 in the mixed team event and in 2022 in 3-meter mixed synchro.
In the process, she unseated the defending World Champion Li Yajie, who finished 2nd.
The two divers had an identical dive lineup through the first three rounds of the five round competition, where Lin out-executed. While Li ratched up the degree of difficulty later in the competition (especially on her 4th dive, where she made up some ground on Lin), the more conservative Lin had more-than-enough margin and cemented her victory with a just 68.90 on her final dive.
That was the second-highest scoring dive of the final, behind only Canadian Pamela Ware.
American-trained Aranza Vazquez took bronze for her first major international medal. She is the defending NCAA Champion on both 1-meter and 3-meter at the University of North Carolina.
After Ware in 4th, Egyptian Mahsa Eissa took 5th and American Hailey Hernandez placed 6th. The other American, Joslyn Oakley, was 16th in prelims to miss out on the final.
The win was China’s 3rd straight and 8th overall since it was added to the World Championship schedule in 1991. The 1-meter springboard competition is not an Olympic event.
Men’s 3-Meter Synchro
- Long Daoyi/Wang Zongyuan, China – 456.33
- Anthony Harding/Jack Laughler, Great Britain – 424.62
- Jules Bouyer/Alexis Jandard, France – 389.10
- Tyler Downs/Greg Duncan, USA – 385.23
- Adrian Abadia/Nicolas Garcia, Spain – 383.61
The Chinese men won their 4th-straight gold medal and 11th overall (in 13 tries) in the men’s 3-meter synchro event, with Long Daoyi and Wang Zongyuan coming away with gold. This is Wang’s 2nd straight gold medal, but this time he paired with the newcomer Long after winning with Cao Yuan last year.
Britain’s Jack Laughler won his 8th overall World Championship medal and 4th silver. In fact, this is his 3rd-straight silver in the men’s 3-meter synchro event, the last two of which came paired with Anthony Harding.
The French pair of Jules Bouyer and Alexis Jandard placed 3rd, just beating-out the Americans. For the tricolore, that is their first-ever medal in this event and just the third diving medal ever for the country. The other two came in the Team event, which was only added to the schedule in 2015, where they won in 2017 and finished 2nd in 2022.
Mixed 10-meter Synchro
- Wang Feilong/Zhang Jiaqi, China – 339.54
- Diego Balleza/Viviana del Angel, Mexico – 313.44
- Hiroki Ito/Minami Itahashi, Japan – 305.34
- Kirill Boliukh/Kseniya Baylor, Ukraine – 295.44
- Nathan Zsombor-Murray/Kate Miller, Canada – 290.43
The Chinese stayed undefeated in five occasions of mixed 10-meter synchronized diving when Wang Feilong and Zhang Jiaqi combined to win the event on Saturday.
Zhang is the defending Olympic and 2019 World Champion in the individual 10-meter event.
The pair were carried to victory by domination in both execution and synchronization, especially in their 3rd dive, where they pulled in 9.5s and scored 81.90 total points – easily the biggest dive of the competition.
But it was their first two dives, the lowest degree-of-difficulty 201B and 301B that were shared by most competitors, where they separated early from the Mexicans, standing already 17.40 points ahead after two rounds.
The American pair of Max Weinrich and Kaylee Bishop placed 11th.
Wang Feilong is listed as 14 and looking at his profile I think it is his first international competition. If I see him on the street I would not think he would be over 10 years old. The picture they took on the medal giving podium was too funny. It looked like a university student was competing against someone from the primary school.
https://www.worldaquatics.com/photos/3591855/diving-day-2-world-aquatics-championships-fukuoka-2023?slide=4
This is not even remotely close to the live video. In the live video he did not appear to know where he was or what he was supposed to be doing on the podium.
Probably being helped out by their cheating Vice President Jihong Zhou.
Zhou Jihong is an absolute disgrace
A cheater through and through
Of note, the person listed as Mahsa Eissa is also known as Maha Amer, who dives for the University of Florida.
China and diving.
Name a more iconic duo.
How about China and doping?
Peanut butter and jelly. Batman and Robin. Fourth of July and fireworks…..
China and corruption
china and table tennis. but thats about it