China crushed the individual 3m and 10m fields in Thursday’s prelims to open the FINA Diving World Cup in Berlin. In every event, China went 1-2.

In the women’s 3m prelim, the 2022 world championship bronze medalist CHANG Yani beat by the reigning world champion CHEN Yiwen by 8.1 points. Both topped 300 points overall, and Chang was 33 points ahead of their nearest challenger, Sayaka MIKAMI, the lone diver from Japan in Berlin. The entire 11-woman field from the prelims will contest the Sunday’s final.

In the women’s 10m prelim, all eight competitors advanced to Saturday’s final so the pressure was off. Nonetheless, 14-year-old Tokyo Olympic champion QUAN Hongchan beat her teammate, the 15-year-old two-time world champion CHEN Yuxi, and both cleared the 400-point mark. Four-time Olympian Pandelela PAMG, of Malaysia, 27, had the third-best score of the day, but it was more than 100 points behind Quan and Chen.

The men’s 3m prelim featured the largest field, but only the top 12 (of 19) would advance to Friday’s final. Again, China went 1-2, led by WANG Zonguan and CAO Yuan, respectively. Australia’s LI Shixin (a two-time 1m world champion for China), was third at age 34. Those three were the only divers to clear 400 points in the men’s platform prelim. Two notable divers who did not make the final cut were Berlin native Lou MASSENBERG (who finished 17th) and American Tyler DOWNS, the youngest US diver on the 2020 Olympic team who, at 18, made the Tokyo squad by edging out 2012 Olympic gold medalist David BOUDIA. Downs was 13th on Thursday, missing the cut by 9.35 points.

In the men’s 10m platform prelim, YANG Hao of China let everyone know he brought his A Game. He was the only man to top 500 points, thanks, in part, to two dives that scored more than 90 points. But he had trouble executing his most difficult dive (a 207B, a back 3½, carrying a 3.6 DD) and earned only 75.60 points for it. His countryman YANG Jian, however, suffered two botched dives – including a risky 5156B (forward 2½ with three twists) which carried a 3.8 DD and earned 4.5s from all seven judges. If he can fix that and his 626B (armstand back 3 somersaults which scored merely 56.00 points) before Sunday’s final, he could absolutely give Yang Hao a battle. It doesn’t look like anyone else will come close. The nearest competitor on Thursday, US Olympian Brandon LOSCHIAVO, was 102.05 points behind Yang Hao.

On Friday, prize money will be handed out in three diving finals: women’s and men’s 10m synchro, and the men’s 3m individual event.