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China's diving dominance in doubt
Yu Fen, one of the heroes behind China's long-time success in diving, suggests the current ailing national team might be headed the wrong way in trying to recapture past glory.
"All members of the national squad have to determine where they really need to improve," said Yu, now the head coach of the Tsinghua University Diving Team. The dilemma between demanding a higher degree of difficulty and maintaining consistency of technique has hampered the team for years as foreign divers, with help from overseas Chinese coaches, have shown better results and frequently bettered China. The Chinese team, which demonstrated a dramatic drop in degree of difficulty at last year's Barcelona World Championships, showed a marked improvement this time but failed to maintain its consistency. Many divers, including several world champions, repeatedly made errors during the competition. "Our divers had too many unstable performances. It was not a normal situation. There may be something wrong with the training methods," said Yu. However, simply maintaining consistency isn't enough to ensure China's success. World champion Guo Jingjing, the core member of the women's team, failed to stop Russian veteran Julia Pakhalina from winning the springboard competition because of a relatively low degree of difficult in her last two dives. "Our skills used to boast a wide lead in the world, but now divers from Russia, Australia, Canada and the US are all catching up," said Xuan Zengyong, an international diving judge. "Their degree of difficulty on average is about 0.3 higher than China's. Once they have a successful dive, we are forced to compete at higher quality without any fault." But Yu doubts the team can increase its degree of difficulty smoothly prior to this summer's Olympics. "The degree of difficulty is based on daily and long-time overall training. Rome was not built one day." Unsuccessful revenge The team's showing in Athens, an important warm-up for the Olympics, was not convincing enough to show a measurable improvement over Barcelona.
The star-studded squad garnered gold in five of the eight events and China finished atop the medal standings, but their performance was still considered less than stellar for failing to avenge the big blow they suffered last July. At Barcelona the squad took only four titles, a shocking result that plunged them into deep soul-searching. Coming off a four-month isolated training camp, the Chinese divers still didn't show decisive improvement. "Actually the situation has not changed too much from last year's World Championships," said Yu. Sydney Olympic champion Laura Wilkinson of the US clinched the gold medal in the platform event, outclassing young Chinese hopeful Lao Lishi, the runner-up in Barcelona, who dropped to a disappointing seventh place. Xu Mian, who won gold at the 2001 World Championships, dropped all the way to last place among the 12 finalists - the worst result ever for a Chinese diver in international competition. Team manager Zhou Jihong admitted some of her divers competed with injuries, but that offered little consolation for their results. "Even if both of Lao and Xu were healthy, they could not beat Laura. She really staged a stable and high-level performance," said Zhou. Barcelona platform winner Alexandre Despatie of Canada and Russian veteran Julia Pakhalina continued China's heart-breaking story by beating world champions Peng Bo and Guo in men's and women's springboard respectively. Pakhalina's achievement, which also included beating another Chinese favourite, Wu Minxia, who finished third, was so big that her winning effort was touted as "Pakhalina's Day" on FINA's official website. "Now, I have to admit our divers give 100 per cent effort if we try to win a gold. The overall level of diving is higher than the time we were competing. In some categories, the scores were so close that we even needed some luck to win," said Zhou. Uneasy task ahead With six months to go before the Athens Olympics, no one appears confident that China's diving team will win as many golds as they did four years ago in Sydney. In 2000, China lost the first three golds but rallied to clinch the other five. China has managed to remain No 1 in synchronized diving, but in singles competition only Olympic and world champion Tian Liang was able to win a title in Athens World Cup. "Foreign countries have made more investment in diving in recent years. Besides, the time for harvest has come after coaches from China flew to other teams with better training system and methods, " said Li Dazheng, director of Swimming Administration Centre. "Built on the same base, foreign athletes hold advantages in on-court competitive ability, physical strength and long athletic life." Emerging rivals The list of main rivals for the Chinese team is growing, apart from arch-rival Russia, countries like Australia, Canada and the US all emerging as world-class powers. Russian star Alexandre Dobrosok and Canada's Alexandre Despatie, along with Matthew Helm and Robert Newbery of Australia are just some of the big names for China to beat. Since 1985 when former national team head coach Liang Boxi became the first Chinese diving coach to be hired overseas, dozens of national and local coaches and retired divers, including two-time Olympic champion Gao Min, have gone abroad. |
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