China’s Cheng Zilong and Zhu Zifeng rebounded from a bad splashdown in the fourth round to take gold in men’s 10m sychro – by 0.93 point – on the last dive of the night, edging out Neutral B athletes Nikita Shleikher and Ruslan Ternovoi. USA earned the bronze
SINGAPORE – Suddenly, everything changed in the fourth round of the men’s 10m synchro final on Tuesday when China’s Cheng Zilong, 19, and Zhu Zifeng, 23, struggled to land their reverse 3½, scored a mere 60.18 points, and saw their lead vaporize.
That left Neutral B’s Nikita Shleikher, 27, and Ruslan Ternovoi, 24, on top, followed by Japanese ace Rikuto Tamai, 18, and his 28-year-old partner Ohkubo Shu. But then, in round five, Japan botched the same dive and, suddenly, they were out of hunt and China just had to close a 13.11-point gap behind the Neutrals with one dive to go – assuming everyone dove cleanly.
In the last round, the United States’ Joshua Hedberg, 18, and Carson Tyler, 21, held strong and found themselves guaranteed a medal and two pairs remaining with 410.70 points. The Neutrals’ final dive (a back 2½ with 2½ twists pike) was solid enough to surpass the US by exactly 18 points.
That meant that China needed to score 89.79 points for the same dive the Neutrals had just done to tie for the win. But they hadn’t hit that score all night. Under full pressure to deliver China’s seventh diving gold in Singapore, Cheng and Zhu ripped the dive, scored 90.72 and seized the gold by 0.93 points.
During the last two rounds, Cheng said, “It was all about mutual trust. We believed in each other. I trusted that we would be able to close it out” with a 109C in round five and a 5255B in round six. “These are not difficult [dives] for [Zhu], and in training we’re not bad. We learnt how to work well with each other. During this competition we really bonded. We will always face the pressure together.”
Runner-up Shleiker said, “We expected the medal, but we wanted the gold. Our last dive was the bad one, but we are still happy about the result. We will improve every dive, step by step to achieve our goal. The goal is not to beat the Chinese. It’s to win gold.”
For the US, the bronze marked the nation’s world championship medal in this event since 2009 (when David Boudia and Thomas Finchum took silver in Rome).
Personally, Tyler said the bronze, "means a lot. We just started training together this season, at the same location. That’s been really helpful, building chemistry, having the same coach. It’s been a long road of training, coming back from the Olympics, not getting the [men’s 10m synchro] spot. We really put a lot of effort into this medal, so it means a ton. I’m hoping to carry this momentum into the individual events as well."
Hedberg, a five-time junior world championship medalist, said, “This is my first senior world medal, and I can’t be happier. We just tried to step it up for the finals, dive when it counts, and perform our best."
The rest of the standings were: Great Britain in fourth, Ukraine fifth, Germany sixth, Malaysia seventh, and Japan eighth.
Up Next:
Wednesday’s only final will be the seventh edition of the (non-Olympic) mixed 3m synchro event. Australia is the defending champion.