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Chinese diving team collects first two golds at Universiade
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DAEGU, South Korea, Aug. 24 (Xinhuanet)
-- After the disappointment in the world championships,
Chinese national diving team reconvened to storm into the
22nd World University Games by collecting the first two
golds here on Sunday. 
World champion Wu Minxia clinched the first diving gold
for China as she triumphed in the women's one-meter
springboard event.
Peng Bo and Wang Kenan cooperated to seal a two-gold
victory when they eased into the throne on men's three-meter
synchronized.
The Chinese team, however, missed golds on both
competitions atthe Barcelona World Championships which ended
last month.
Wu scored 309.99 points, beating her teammate Guo
Jingjing, double world champion at Barcelona, to the second
place on 309.73 points. Russian Nataliya Umyskova was left
in a distant third on 277.11 points.
"It is my first time in the Universiade so I am glad to
take the gold," said the 18-year-old
Peng Bo and Wang Kenan
Wu, who grabbed the women's synchronized three-meter event
with Guo at the worlds.
"The one-meter event is not an official one in the
Olympics so we usually put less attention to it," Wu said,
"But I tried my best in the diving and I won."
Whereas Guo, who did a near-perfect fifth dive with
clean entry, regretted her early flaw.
"My first dive was not so good, which cost me the
victory," said Guo, who received 51.06 points for her 203B
first dive.
Peng and Wang led all way through the five rounds and
ended up with a clean last dive, which earned them 84.66 to
top the ranking.
The pair scored 347.13 points, 41.22 points higher than
Jorge Marinez and Omar Ojeda of Mexico, who took silver.
Italian M. Mazzucchi and C. Sacchin outrun the home pair
Kwon Kyung-min and Cho Kwan-hoon at the last dive to pick up
bronze with 303.84.
"It's not so difficult compared to world championships
since not all the teams sent their first-class divers here,"
Peng said.
"That's why we can win with relative ease, but we're
satisfied with our performance," added Peng.
The team leader Zhou Jihong also expressed gratitude for
the South Korean spectators' support, who didn't restrain
from hailing the Chinese team while cheering on their own
divers.
"They are really nice and kept on yelling and clapping
for us. It's really touching," she said.
The home crowd even repeatedly sang a pop Chinese song "Tianmimi"
during the break between the two finals.
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