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Shi Tingmao won her second gold medal of the FINA World Championships when she led a Chinese one-two with defending champion He Zi in the women’s 3m springboard to bring China their eighth title of 11 contested at Kazan’s Aquatics Palace, with two finals still to come.
Shi, who had already retained the 3m synchro world crown with Wu Minxia, shared the lead with He in the first of the five rounds but then edged ahead of her team-mate as other challengers faded. Canada’s Olympic 3m synchro bronze medallist Jennifer Abel, who had gathered Kazan silver in the 3m synchro, was their most persistent rival, never out of the top three until she blew her final dive and dropped from third to sixth. That let in Tania Cagnotto for the bronze. The 30-year-old Italian had won the 1m title ahead of Shi and He to deny China gold for the first time in Kazan. She shot up from fifth to third and won her fourth 3m bronze medal in the last six World Championships.
Shi, the World Cup champion, and He, the Olympic 3m synchro gold medallist and individual silver medallist, were, however, not going to let the gold go this time. Shi, 1m world champion in 2011, had led the way in the semi-final round and was over 10 points ahead of He going into the final series, with Abel a further 10 points adrift. After Abel fluffed her last dive, He finished strongly but Shi was far enough ahead to win despite a slightly lower score than her team-mate on the same concluding forward 2-1/2 somersaults with one twist. Shi claimed gold with 383.55 points, with 2013 champion He repeating her silver of 2011 on 377.45, having won medals but lost her world titles in both the 1m and 3m events in Kazan. Cagnotto was in no position to challenge the top two but was good for bronze with an aggregate of 356.15. This took her world championship tally to one gold, three silvers and five bronzes. There were two-point penalties in the final for both Maddison Keeney (AUS) and Olena Fedorova (UKR) for each taking two attempts at a dive after stopping on the board and going back the first time.
It was China’s eighth successive win in the event at the Worlds, following Guo Jingjing’s unique set of five and the victories of her successors – Wu Minxia, He Zi and, now, Shi Tingmao. The last non-Chinese winner was Yulia Pakhalina of Russia in 1998.
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2015 FINA World Championships, Diving: Day 8 Results – Results
