CHINESE diving legend Guo Jingjing cruised into the final of the women’s 3m springboard event by posting easily the best score in Monday’s afternoon semifinal, just as she had done in the morning preliminaries.
However, her score of 368.10 was not as good as her morning mark of 377.55, but it was still good enough to finish well clear of the field.
Canada’s Jennifer Abel finished a surprise second with 251.65, just ahead of China’s He Zi, with 351.45, who had been well ahead of the rest in second in the preliminaries.
There was no joy for new 10m platform world champion Paula Espinosa of Mexico, though, as she finished 13th in the semifinal and just missed the cut for Tuesday’s final.
Guo, known as the “Diving Princess” in China, is one of the most decorated divers of all time and has a record four gold medals from the Olympic Games, matched only by former synchronized partner Fu Minxia and American Greg Louganis.
She has won the 3m springboard and 3m synchronized titles at the last two Olympics (having taken silver at both in Sydney in 2000) and the last four World Championships and is here aiming for a record five world titles in a row in both her specialties.
(SD-Agencies)