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Saturday, October 24, 2009
ROME — Olympic champion He Chong held his nerve on his final dive to take the gold medal at the World Championships here on Thursday.
He came into the final round of dives in the lead but picked a trickier dive than his rivals.
Although he did not execute a perfect dive, it was just enough to push American Troy Dumais and Canadian Alexandre Despatie into second and third respectively.
The podium was an exact reverse of the worlds in Montreal four years ago.
Afterwards the Olympic champion said he could have done better overall.
"I'm satisfied even though I made a few mistakes and some of my movements weren't perfect. I felt a bit nervous," He said.
"I think it was an average performance. The level of difficulty of my dives was quite high. I didn't have a particularly bad dive, I just think I could have done better on all of them."
He's team-mate Zhang Xinhua finished fourth with Australia's Olympic 10m champion Matthew Mitcham in ninth.
He held the lead in the competition after every dive except the second round when he made a mistake and Dumais overtook him.
However, the American made a hash of his third dive, scoring a lowly 67.50 while He posted a 91.80 and Dumais was playing catch-up from there.
"Silver is great but I know I can do better. I didn't feel pressure going into the last dive because back home we practise this last dive all the time," said Dumais, who matched his result from 2005 in Montreal.
"My coach gives me a score to aim for and that keeps it fun and real. He has great faith in me and this is why I came into this event mentally strong."
Despatie got off to a slow start with a 72.00 that left him in seventh place but four dives in the mid-to-late 80s pushed him into gold medal contention.
But the 2005 champion had a poor last dive compared to He and Dumais and had to settle for the bronze medal.
"That was average for me, I needed to do better on the last dive, I wish it had been better," he said.
"I have had two bronze medals at this championship (he also took bronze in the 3m synchro) and that's a good result considering the injuries I've had this year."
But He deserved his victory with the only total score over 500, managing 505.20.
Despatie had topped the semi-final standings with Dumais top in Wednesday's preliminaries but He saved his best for the final.
He came into the final round of dives in the lead but picked a trickier dive than his rivals.
Although he did not execute a perfect dive, it was just enough to push American Troy Dumais and Canadian Alexandre Despatie into second and third respectively.
The podium was an exact reverse of the worlds in Montreal four years ago.
Afterwards the Olympic champion said he could have done better overall.
"I'm satisfied even though I made a few mistakes and some of my movements weren't perfect. I felt a bit nervous," He said.
"I think it was an average performance. The level of difficulty of my dives was quite high. I didn't have a particularly bad dive, I just think I could have done better on all of them."
He's team-mate Zhang Xinhua finished fourth with Australia's Olympic 10m champion Matthew Mitcham in ninth.
He held the lead in the competition after every dive except the second round when he made a mistake and Dumais overtook him.
However, the American made a hash of his third dive, scoring a lowly 67.50 while He posted a 91.80 and Dumais was playing catch-up from there.
"Silver is great but I know I can do better. I didn't feel pressure going into the last dive because back home we practise this last dive all the time," said Dumais, who matched his result from 2005 in Montreal.
"My coach gives me a score to aim for and that keeps it fun and real. He has great faith in me and this is why I came into this event mentally strong."
Despatie got off to a slow start with a 72.00 that left him in seventh place but four dives in the mid-to-late 80s pushed him into gold medal contention.
But the 2005 champion had a poor last dive compared to He and Dumais and had to settle for the bronze medal.
"That was average for me, I needed to do better on the last dive, I wish it had been better," he said.
"I have had two bronze medals at this championship (he also took bronze in the 3m synchro) and that's a good result considering the injuries I've had this year."
But He deserved his victory with the only total score over 500, managing 505.20.
Despatie had topped the semi-final standings with Dumais top in Wednesday's preliminaries but He saved his best for the final.
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