Chen Yuxi of China poses with the gold medal after winning the women's 10-meter platform diving final at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, July 19, 2023. /CFP
Chen Yuxi of China won the women's 10-meter platform diving gold medal at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, on Wednesday. Her teammate Quan Hongchan secured the silver medal.
Chen and Quan turned Wednesday's contest into a "Chinese derby" as both were far ahead of the other divers from the first round. Chen received 11 full scores of 10 points from seven judges for her five dives. In fact, none of the judges ever rated her performance below 9.0 points.
Chen's final score was 457.85 points, 117.6 above the bronze medalist, Caeli McKay of Canada.
Quan Hongchan of China competes in the women's 10-meter platform diving final at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, July 19, 2023. /CFP
Despite the loss to Chen, Quan performed well in Wednesday's competition as well, especially in the final two dives. She received 10 points from all seven judges in the fourth round when she finished 207C at the degree of difficulty of 3.3. She continued to lead in the final dive with 91.2 points before finishing the contest with a total score of 445.6 points.
The incredible performances of Chen and Quan added the ninth diving gold for China at the World Championships this year. So far they have bagged all of the titles of the sport.
The 12 divers that appeared in the women's 10-meter platform final on Wednesday have all been automatically qualified for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.
Meanwhile, Spain's Dennis Gonzalez Boneu won the men's solo free title in artistic swimming with 193.0334 points, followed by Colombia's Gustavo Sanchez with 189.9625, and American Kenneth Gaudet with 179.5562.
All three of Team Spain's gold medals are from artistic swimming, with the other two medals from team technical and men's solo technical events.
Later in the women's solo title, local Yukiko Inui took gold with 254.6062 points, followed by Austria's Vasiliki Alexandri with 229.3251 and British Kate Sortman 219.9542.
(With input from Xinhua)