China's young divers sign off with 14th gold medal

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China dominated the FINA World Junior Diving Championships in Kiev, Ukraine by securing 14 of the 17 gold medals on offer.

Lian Junjie opened another fruitful day for China on Sunday, the final day of the week-long championships, by finishing well clear in the boys' A class platform, with a total 589.30 points. The young sensation took a highly difficult dive, a forward four and a half somersaults in tuck position, and earned 96.90 points in the Boys A 3m springboard on Day 2.

Ma Tong and Zhang Rui then capped off a wonderful tournament for China as they overtook the Japanese pair and early leaders Rin Kaneto and Mai Yasuda, to win the A/B class girls' 3-meter springboard synchronized diving at the Liko Sports Centre.

Individually, Lai Shiyun was the most successful diver in Ukraine with three titles – the Girls B 1m, 3m and A&B platform events.

Daniel Restrepo Garcia of Columbia turned out to be the most successful non-Chinese competitor, winning gold on the Boys A 3m springboard and bronze in the synchro event.

"Junior diving is growing very fast," said Klaus Dibiasi, FINA Diving Technical Committee member. "The level of competitions is much better than years ago. You can see that girls are doing almost the same dives as boys, and half of the dives they have never done before.

"Juniors’ level has been raised significantly and one of the trends is that the level of difficulty and scores in the B age group is almost the same as in the A category.

"What we saw here at the 22nd FINA World Junior Diving Championships was very exciting. The competition level was high; China a little above than the rest," Klaus added.

Medal Table

(gold, silver, bronze, total)

1. China 14 - 8 - 2 - 24

2. Great Britain 1 - 2 - 0 - 3

3. Canada 1 - 0 - 1 - 2

4. Columbia 1 - 0 - 1 - 2

5. Russia 0 - 3 - 3 - 6

6. USA 0 - 3 - 1 - 4

7. Germany 0 - 1 - 0 - 1

8. Australia 0 - 0 - 3 - 3

9. Japan 0 - 0 - 2 - 2

(With input from agencies)