Paris Olympics: China’s diving domination leaves rest playing catch up, Team GB boss says
- China are expected to achieve clean sweep of diving gold medals at this Olympics, thanks to likes of Quan Hongchan, Wang Zongyuan
The head of Great Britain’s diving team in Paris said they had been playing catch up with China for a long time, but there were no plans to copy a system that has brought total domination to the sport.
Chinese divers have claimed gold in all five events at the Paris Olympics so far, and are expected to complete a clean sweep over the next couple of days, with the first of those coming in the men’s 3m springboard on Thursday.
Wang Zongyuan and Xie Siyi sailed into the final with significantly higher scores than the rest, with Team GB’s Jack Laugher closest, but still nearly 40 points adrift in third.
Tim Jones, associate performance director at Aquatics GB, praised the work ethic of China’s divers, and suggested the popularity of the sport on the mainland made a big difference.
“We’ve been working hard to try and catch China for a long period, it’s very clear that the Chinese divers work very hard,” he said. “It is a very popular sport in China, probably more so than it is in the UK.
