In the men’s Olympic 3m springboard final on Thursday, China should go 1-2, as it did in Tokyo, only in reverse order. The 2020 runner-up, Wang Zongyuan, is heavily favored to seize diving gold No. 6 in Paris for the People’s Republic of China, followed by the 2020 Olympic champion, Xie Siyi. Great Britain and Mexico should duel for the bronze.
In Thursday’s men’s 3m final, Wang Zongyuan, 22, will most likely upgrade his 2020 silver medal and capture China’s sixth gold medal in the six Olympic diving events held so far in Paris. His teammate, Xie Siyi, 28, is the defending Olympic champion, and while Xie is extremely polished, Wang has a much more difficult dive list which, given his consistency, gives Wang an edge.
For example, in Wednesday’s semifinal, Wang scored more than 100 points on his final dive, a very tough forward 4½ (with a 3.8 degree of difficulty). Wang and Xie were the only divers to exceed 500 points for the day. They should go 1-2 again.
On Thursday, all 12 divers will start with a clean slate, however.
Great Britian’s Jack Laugher, 29, will also be in the final line-up, where he will aim for his third consecutive Olympic podium in the event.
After Wednesday’s semifinal, Laugher said, “There's still loads left in the tank for tomorrow."
Laugher, like Wang, plans to execute the hardest dive in Thursday’s final: a forward 2½ with 3 twists that carries a 3.9 degree of difficulty. The dynamic Osmar Olvera Ibarra, 20, of Mexico also plans to perform this dive in the fourth round (of six) – the same round as Laugher.
Olvera Ibarra was Mexico’s youngest diver at the last Olympics, in Tokyo. Since then, he has proven to be a rising star who could knock Laugher out of contention. Olvera Ibarra has already collected two world championships medals in 3m: 2023 silver and 2024 bronze. In addition: on Friday, he and his 3m synchro partner very nearly snapped China’s attempt to win all eight diving medals in Paris, instead taking silver by a mere 2.07-point margin.
Also worth noting: the lone 3m finalist from the US, Carson Tyler, 20, is the only diver in Paris who will be contesting both the 3m and 10m individual events. It used to be fairly common for divers to attempt the double until 2000, when synchro diving events were added to the Olympic program in Sydney. In fact, Tyler is the first American since Mark Ruiz in 2000 to qualify in both 3m springboard and 10m platform at the same Olympics.
The men’s 3m final will begin Thursday at 15:00 Paris time at the Aquatics Centre.