Springboard, Men

Xie Siyi, the defending Olympic champion and 2017-19 World Champion, was again one of the contenders for the gold medal. After his success in Tokyo, he had been away from the pool a while, finishing his degree and getting married. Returning to the world podium in 2024, he had finished second at the World Championships in Doha to Wang Zongyuan, the Tokyo silver medalist and now three-time World Champion (2022-24). The pair had also won Olympic gold together in Tokyo in the synchronized springboard event. Wang had repeated that six days earlier in Paris, but with a different partner.

In both qualifying and the semi-finals, Wang was clearly the better of the two, recording the best score of the competition in nine of the twelve dives. Xie was a clear second both times, despite a poor fourth jump in the semi-finals. Xie opened better than Wang in the final, however, although the Xiangyang athlete countered in the next dive. But Xie scored higher in each of the following three dives, creating a 15-point lead going into the final dive. Despite Wang executing the exact same dive as Xie, the difference was not enough to keep Xie from defending his title. Xie became the third diver to repeat his springboard title, after Greg Louganis (1984-1988) and Xiong Ni (1996-2000).

Behind the Chinese, the bronze was quickly secured by Mexico’s Osmar Olvera. Already a two-time World medalist, he was favorite to be “best of the rest”, eventually being 70 points clear of the fourth placed Carson Tyler and recording the best score on the fifth dive. It was his second Olympic medal, after the silver in the synchronized springboard earlier in the Paris Games.