Diving: Rivals take risky plunge to chase China

LONDON - Faced with a Chinese diving team who hardly seem to put a pointed toe wrong and who regard anything less than 100 percent gold as failure, rivals at the London Olympics responded by upping the difficulty of their dives.

The strategy paid off in the men's events, with American David Boudia and Russian Ilya Zakharov beating the Chinese to golds but the favourites still won six of the eight medals on offer at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park.

Nevertheless, platform winner Boudia, delighted with his country's first diving medal since the 2000 Sydney Olympics, saw encouraging signs ahead for Rio de Janeiro in four years' time.

David Boudia of the US poses with his gold medal after winning the men's 10m platform final during the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Center Aug 11, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

"The world is slowly catching up with China and it's exciting," said Boudia after the Americans also won a silver and two bronzes in the synchronised events.

"There's no magic formula. You don't need a Chinese coach to get a gold medal. It just shows what hard work and the United States, the rest of the world can do."

China's divers mostly played it safe, shunning the riskier, higher-score dives in favour of those they knew they could perform well in their pursuit of an eight-gold sweep in London.

Zakharov out-foxed them in the three-metre springboard, choosing two dives rated 3.9 and 3.8 on difficulty and none that rated less than 3.4. When he executed them well, he grabbed the gold.

Russia's Ilya Zakharov poses with his gold medal after winning the men's 3m springboard final at the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Center Aug 7, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

His Chinese rival Qin Kai gave an accomplished performance but had chosen only one dive worth more than 3.5 and had two worth less than 3.4.

Defending his choice of dives after being left with silver, Qin said: "Actually, my level of difficulty was higher than my last Games. The more difficult it is, the more risky."

Divers are constantly pushing the limits of what can be done and the hardest dive performed in London was rated 4.1, up from 3.8 in Beijing.

The winning score in the men's 10-metre platform final in 2008 - for Australia's Matthew Mitcham, the only non-Chinese to win a gold medal in Beijing - would have earned fourth place in London.

Mitcham failed to get through the semi-final here and, in a close final, Boudia edged out China's Qiu Bo for the gold.

Qiu's and his team's obvious distress - fellow diver Chen Ruolin was in tears - contrasted with the unbridled joy of Tom Daley, whose bronze in the event was Britain's first individual Olympics diving medal since 1960.

China looked as dominant as ever in the women's events where Chen Ruolin was in a class of her own.

Chen's winning tally in the 10-metre platform final was 55.80 points ahead of second-placed Australian Brittany Broben while all that separated the silver medallist from the 12th-placed finisher was 21.95.

London organisers offered to refund ticket costs for several hundred spectators at the 10-metre platform sessions after discovering that the undulating roof of the venue designed by Zaha Hadid obscured their view of the divers.