Springboard, Men

The Chinese domination of the diving events was expected to continue in the men’s springboard event with Xie Siyi and Wang Zongyuan spearheading the charge. Xie was the winner of the last two World Championships, as well as the 2018 World Cup, whereas Wang was the 2019 one-metre world champion. The major threat to the Chinese was from Britain’s Jack Laugher, the 2016 Rio silver medallist and 2019 3-metre FINA World Series winner.

In the preliminary round, it was the Chinese pair who dominated and, despite Xie leading after the first dive, it was Wang who lead after dive number two, and remained in the lead to qualify ahead of Xie, who scored the only 100 of qualifying with a magnificent forward four-and-a-half somersaults in his fifth and final dive. Laugher was second after the first dive but two disastrous rounds followed as he slipped to 12th, before recovering to qualify in sixth place, two places below the other Briton James Heatly. Mexico’s Rommel Pacheco qualified in third place.

Again, the semi-final was dominated by just two men, Xie and Wang, while the British pair of Heatly and Laugher qualified in third and fourth place. Xie’s final dive was a forward 4.5 somersaults in tuck that saw him score 100.70 points as he led his compatriot by nearly three points with Laugher nearly 50 points behind in fourth and Heatly, the grandson of the 1948 and 1952 Olympic diver Peter Heatly, a further 60 points behind Laugher.

The final belonged to just one man, Xie Siyi, who led from start to finish while Wang occupied second place throughout, except for after dive two, when Laugher briefly moved into the silver medal position. From the half-way mark, the three medal positions were almost certainly going to go to the two Chinese divers and Laugher.

Laugher was guaranteed a medal after temporarily taking the lead with his sixth and final dive. Wang went next and his forward 4.5 somersaults in tuck was good enough to put him ahead of Laugher with 102.60 and then the two-time world champion Xie Siyi matched Wang’s dive to score the same points and win the gold by nearly 24 points. For Xie Siyi it made up of missing the Rio Games because of a broken ankle. There were emotional scenes at the end of the competition as Mexico’s Rommel Pacheco bowed out of Olympic competition after appearing at four Games since 2004. He finished sixth in his finale.