Platform, Women

Although the Chinese women dominated the sport by 2004, they were not quite as good on platform as on springboard. The 2003 World Champion was Canada’s Émilie Heymans, who was born in Belgium but moved to Canada with her family when she was only a 1-year-old. The 2004 World Cup went to the defending Olympic champion, American Laura Wilkinson. In the end the gold in this event would go to the surprising Australian Chantelle Newbery, who was only sixth after qualifying and third after the semi-final round. She had never won a major platform title before and had been away from the sport after the 2000 Olympics while giving birth to a son. Newbery was married to Robert Newbery, who won three synchro bronze medals in 2000-04.

Silver went to Lao Lishi, who had been runner-up at 2003 Worlds and led after the semis. Her teammate Li Ting was second after the semi-finals but dropped out of the medals in the final round, placing sixth. Heymans also failed to medal, after a very poor semi-final performance. The bronze went to Loudy Tourky, an Australian of Palestine heritage, who had been second at the 2004 World Cup.