China's Wang Feng (up) and Qin Kai compete in the Good Luck Beijing FINA World Cup Diving competition in Beijing on Tuesday, February 19, 2008. The 16th FINA Diving World Cup, also the 2008 Beijing Olympics qualifier, kicked off on Tuesday in the National Aquatic Center with men's 3-meter springboard diving.
World champion Wang Feng and Qin Kai grabbed the first gold at the "Good Luck Beijing" 16th FINA Diving World Cup in Beijing on Tuesday.
Wang and Qin came from behind to clinch the gold of the men's three-meter springboard synchronized final.
"I am quite satisfied with our performance today," said Wang. "But we didn't perform perfect, and there were still some mistakes. We are going to deal with the mistakes later in training."
The Chinese duo, who was second after three dives, took the lead with a perfect fourth dive, which earned them 90.78 points.
They finally took the gold with 462.12 points
The 21-year-old Qin nailed the gold of men's 3m springboard diving at both the World Cup and the Asian Games in 2006. He claimed the gold of the event in the 2007 Melbourne world championships with Wang.
Russia's "diving czar" Dmitry Sautin, gold medalist in the event in the 2003 world championships, took the silver in 418.65 with teenage partner Yuriy Kunakov.
"A silver is good," said the diving veteran. "We will do better and make few mistakes to compete with Chinese divers in Olympic Games."
Canadian pair Alexandre Despatie and Arturo Miranda, runners-up of the event in the 2007 worlds, took the bronze in 416.94.
"I can't remember the last time when the Chinese team was not the winner," said Despatie, the Canadian golden boy. "The Chinese team is absolutely the dominant team."
"We will focus on individual diving in the rest time of the season, which is very important for us."
(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2008)
