China's Chen Ruolin competes during women's 10m platform diving final, at London 2012 Olympic Games in London, Britain, August 9, 2012. Chen Ruolin won gold medal in this event. (Photo: Xinhua)
China's defending Olympic champion Chen Ruolin dominated the women's 10m platform diving at the London Games on Thursday, adding the sixth diving gold to the Chinese team.
The 19-year-old, winner of the event at the Beijing Games and the 2011 Shanghai World Championships, asserted her dominance after the first dive - a forward three-and-a-half somersault in pike position - in which she amassed 85.5 points, the only score over 80 in the first round.
She sealed her victory after her second dive, after which she edged over second placed Australian diver Melissa Wu over 20 points.
Chen carried on her supremacy after each dive and impressed spectators with her stable performances, scoring above 84 points from four of her five dives to pull away from the others.
She stamped her authority with a clear last dive, two and a half somersault with one and a half twists, to collect 422.30 points in total.
Australian Brittany Broben took the silver medal with a margin of 55.8 points to Chen, while the bronze was snatched by Pamg Pandelela Rinong from Malaysia with 359.20 points.
"I'm very relaxed today and did not feel much pressure. Maybe that's the reason for my consistency in all the dives in the final," Chen said.
It was her second gold medal in London after grabbing the synchronized platform diving with partner Wang Hao.
"I feel very proud to take two gold medals for China," she said.
Her teammate Hu Yadan, silver medalist behind Chen at the 2011 Shanghai World Championships, was too nervous to finish 9th as she nailed down only 54.00 and 43.20 points in the first two dives.
Hu, the youngest diver at in the competition at 15, stunned the audience with the highest 89.10 points of the final in her fourth dive, the most difficult 207C that featured three-and-a-half somersaults in tuck position, but was still not enough for a podium.
An unstable mindset which resulted in lack of consistency seemed to be the biggest problem for the teenager.
"I was extremely nervous in the final and failed to get into a rhythm for my dives," said Hu.
"I did not expect the errors at the starting dive which made me more stressed and out of control," she added.
Commenting on Hu's performance, Chen said it was the first Olympic Games for Hu and she still had lots of chances ahead.
"She will gain more experiences be more stable in the future,," Chen said.
Chen's victory brought the sixth diving gold medal for China out of the seven events. Russian diver Ilya Zakharov spoiled China's plan of gold sweep as he defeated defending champion He Chong and synchronized Olympic champion Qin Kai in the men's 3m springboard final to clinch the gold.
