CHINESE Olympic champions Qin Kai and Wang Feng led from start to finish to retain their men’s three-meter synchronized springboard title at the World Championships in Rome, Italy, on Saturday.
Americans Troy Dumais and Kristian Ipsen finished second with Alexandre Despatie and Reuben Ross of Canada completing the podium.
It was Qin’s second gold medal of these championships having won the one-meter springboard event Friday while for Wang it represented a third straight world crown in this event.
The Chinese posted the best score in five out of six rounds and clinched the title with a 94.50 score from their final dive to give them a total of 467.94.
“This morning we were feeling a bit nervous so we didn’t perform our best. Tonight we did better, much better,” said Wang.
“In the preliminaries we didn’t do our best because the competition was pretty easy,” added Qin.
Despatie and Ross came into the final round in fifth place but did just enough to deny hosts Italy a medal by finishing a mere 0.09 points above Nicola and Tommaso Marconi in a tight finish for the bronze.
(SD-Agencies)