Synchronized Platform, Women

Chen Ruolin won the Olympic title in 2008 and 2012 with different partners and was hoping to make it a unique treble by winning it with yet another partner, Liu Huixia, the 2014 FINA Female Diver of the Year. They teamed up after the 2012 London Olympics and had won all 17 events they subsequently entered, including the 2013 and 2015 World Championship and the World Cup in 2014 and 2016. Any threat to China’s domination of this event, which has seen them win all four Olympic golds since it was first held in 2000, was probably going to come from the strong Canadian duo of Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion, bronze medalists in London 2012 and silver medalists behind Huixia and Ruolin in the Worlds in both 2013 and 2015. This was their third Olympics together.

True to form, and like their male counterparts the night before, the Chinese pair led from start to finish to win gold, but one thing was different from the men’s win - the girls were diving into green water! Mysteriously the colour of the water changed from clear blue to green overnight and as the competition progressed it got darker and murkier, but it did not put the competitors off and the event was not disrupted.

The threat to the Chinese did indeed come from the Canadian pair, and also the Malaysia duo of Cheong Jun Hoong and Pandela Rinong, who tied second place with the Canadians after the first two rounds and then pulled away on their own after round three when the North Koreans Kim Kuk-Hyang and Kim Mi-Rae dived into the bronze medal position with the best dive of the round. Going into the final round Great Britain had moved up to fourth place ahead of the Canadians after their best dive, but it all changed in the final round. The Chinese pair saved their best dive for last, scoring 87.36 and guaranteeing first place, while the Malyasian duo also had their best dive of the night to get silver, and Malaysia’s first of the Games. It was also a second medal for Pandelela Rinong to add to the individual bronze she won in the 10-metre platform event in 2012. The bronze was still to be won and poor 60+ point dives by the Korean and British girls allowed the Canadians to leapfrog them into third place with a score of 80.64 on their final dive.

For China it was continued domination of the event and, in all synchronised women’s events, they had won nine of the 10 golds since inception in 2000. For Chen Roulin it was a personal milestone as she became only the second diver, make or female, after team-mate Wu Minxia two days earlier, to win a record five Olympic gold medals as she continued her amazing run of winning every major synchronised 10-metre title since 2006.