The diving dream team's dream has plummeted in Barcelona.

The star-studded Chinese squad, which dominated the 2001 Fukuoka World Championships by sweeping eight of the 10 golds, garnered only four this time around.

The disappointing result bore out the pessimistic prediction of the Chinese Swimming Association (CSA) of no more than four or five golds in diving, or even less.

China still topped the medal table with a total of 12 (4-4-4), double Russia's medal take of six (2-2-2). Australia and Canada finished third and fourth with two golds each.

"The 'dream team' does not exist anymore," said the team manager Zhou Jihong after the fierce diving competition from July 13-20.

"We knew we were facing new challenges before the event, but we found the situation much tougher than we had expected."

Olympic and world champion Tian Liang lost his brilliance in the pool, taking only two bronzes in the men's 10m platform and the 10m platform synchronized with teammate Hu Jia.

Chinese women divers contributed all three golds in the eight Olympic events. Victorious Guo Jingjing took two golds, in the women's 3m springboard and the 3m springboard synchronized paired with Wu Minxia. Young guns Lao Lishi and Li Ting secured the third one in the women's platform synchronized.

Xu Xiang added another gold in the men's 1m springboard.

"We learned that we have no absolute advantages in any event. No one could take it easy and the winners came through in the last minute," said the Chinese manager.

Warning

The degree of difficulty and consistency of techniques determine the winners in the sport, and the Chinese diving team has lost the lead in both areas.

Due to the SARS outbreak in the spring, Chinese divers have not been tested in real competition for several months and some new techniques have not been attempted in big events. Therefore, the team decided not to use new techniques in Barcelona but tried to maintain a high consistency in their performances.

But this strategy failed in front of the extremely difficult and consistent actions of the foreign divers, especially on the men's side.

Hu Jia, the only Chinese diver to attempt a new technique in the Worlds, made a big mistake when trying the most difficult action in the last round on the men's 10m platform. He fell from first place to eventually finish fourth in the end.

In the men's 10m platform synchronized, Tian Liang and Hu Jia kept the lead until the fourth round. But Matthew Helm and Robert Newbery of Australia came from behind with their 3.5 back pike 3.6 (DD) for 88.56 to move into the lead, while the Chinese fell to third place with the same dive getting only 70.20 points.

"Other countries now outperform us in some areas, especially on the men's side. They have made impressive progress; we must speed up," said Zhou.

But the CSA Diving director Li Dazheng also pointed out that Chinese divers can hardly make big improvements in the area of degree of difficulty due to their physical strength.

"Some divers now are practicing very difficult techniques, like Lao Lishi and Hu Jia. And the 2004 Athens Olympic Games is one year away, we still have time to make progress and perfect our techniques," said Zhou with confidence.

Multi polarization

Besides China and its long-time rival Russia, Australia and Canada have also shown their power in the pool.

Now the new Russian star Alexandre Dobrosok, Emilie Heymans and Alexandre Despatie of Canada, Matthew Helm and Robert Newbery of Australia, along with Russian veteran Dmitry Sautin, are challenging the Chinese divers.

Li Dazheng said that thanks to the great physical strength of the foreign athletes and the advanced training methods brought by the Chinese coaches working overseas, other countries have achieved rapid progress in this sport in these years.

In 1985, the former national team head coach Liang Boxi became the first Chinese coach to teach diving in Canada. Since then dozens of Chinese national and local team coaches and retired divers have gone abroad to work with foreign clubs and national teams, which has greatly enhanced the level of the sport in these countries.

"We cannot rely on past experience and glory and must make a fresh start after this Worlds," said Zhou.

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