OLYMPIC champions Chen Ruolin and Wang Xin won the 10m synchronized platform title at the World Championships in Rome, Italy, on Sunday.
Their victory continued China’s domination of this event with a comprehensive success that never looked in doubt.
The real interest came in the battle for the minor medals with Americans Mary Beth Dunnichay and Haley Ishimatsu taking silver and Leong Mun Yee and Pandelela Pamg of Malaysia in bronze — winning their country’s first ever world diving medal.
Chen and Wang were a cut above the rest and finished with a score of 369.18, almost 45 points clear of the field.
Their victory means that Chen is now Olympic, world and Asian Games champion in this discipline.
Chen, who is Olympic champion in the individual 10m event, was the reigning champion in this event but with former partner Tong Jia.
However, she was beaten by Mexico’s Paola Espinosa in Saturday’s individual final as she finished runner-up for the second time in a row — in 2007 it was Wang who beat her to the gold.
While the Chinese pair stretched their lead from start to finish, the competition raged behind them.
Four pairs battled it out for the two remaining medals with Australians Briony Cole and Melissa Wu and Canadian duo Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion in contention.
Australia paid for a poor fourth dive that dropped them from second to fifth while the Americans moved steadily up, gaining a place in each of the last two rounds.
Canada was in third going into the final round but missed out on a medal by just 0.27 points to the Malaysians.
On Saturday, Espinosa caused a sensational upset in beating Chen in the 10m platform event to claim Mexico’s first ever World Championship diving gold medal.(SD-Agencies)