PARIS — China’s Quan Hongchan won the women’s 10-metre platform event on Tuesday, bagging the country’s fifth diving gold medal at the Paris Olympics.
Quan retained her Tokyo title on 425.60 points from teammate Chen Yuxi, who again won silver. North Korea’s Kim Mi Rae took the bronze.
Quan and Chen, who won the synchronized 10m platform event last week, were clear favorites to reach the individual final having dominated the preliminary and semi-final rounds.
The 17-year-old Quan quickly demonstrate what perfection is in a dive by getting full marks from all the judges on her first – a forward 3-1/2 somersaults piked.
Quan made mistakes on her third dive, however, which allowed Chen, who turns 19 next month, to narrow the gap to 1.6 points after the 20-year-old executed a neat routine from an arm stand position to score 89.1 points, her highest in the final.
Quan quickly recovered with a better fourth dive, scoring 92.4 points to keep her lead, and finished well to claim gold.
“I give myself 50 (out of 100) for today’s performance,” Quan told reporters after the event. “I didn’t do any of the dives well other than the first one.”
With her victory, Quan has become the fifth person to defend an Olympic title in diving.
Her journey to the second Olympic trophy wasn’t easy as Quan had to cope with puberty after winning the gold medal in Tokyo at the age of 14.
“The most difficult challenge is that I had to change my routines. And I also had to cope with weight gains,” Quan said. “But I had a lot of support from my coach who’s been giving me guidance and encouragement.”
Silver medalist Chen said she was happy the gold went to China.
“I set some goals for myself before the competition and I’m glad I’ve delivered them and performed with all I had,” she said.
“China won the gold and it was won by my partner. I’m very happy about it,” she said. “It is a pity that I lost so narrowly but I’ll just have to work harder.”
The 23-year-old Kim picked up her second medal in Paris after taking silver in the synchronised 10m platform event, becoming her country’s second Olympian to claim multiple medals in a single Games and the first diver to stand on the Olympic podium.
“When I realized I wasn’t able to do better, I felt sad… At the same time it is a meaningful, significant medal,” she said.
“It’s going to be significant in the memory of North Korea. It’s going to be a very small corner of the page of the history of North Korea,” she added.
