China’s Chen Yiwen wins women’s 3m springboard gold

PARIS – China’s Chen Yiwen won the gold medal in the women’s 3m springboard on Aug 9 at the Paris Olympics, extending her country’s winning streak at the 2024 Games’ diving events to seven.

Australia’s Maddison Keeney took silver and China’s Chang Yani won the bronze medal.

Chen, 25, who led the preliminary round and the semi-final by large margins, said she was “pretending to be chill” but was actually under tremendous pressure.

She said: “My heart was beating so fast from the warmup all the way through the last dive. Then, when I finished the last dive, I suddenly calmed down, like I had just let out a long breath.”

She was the only diver on the day who scored over 70 points in each round and finished with 376 points.

Keeney had the highest single dive score of 78.2 points in her last routine – a forward two-and-a-half somersaults coupled with two twists, which carried the highest difficulty level.

That performance, however, was not good enough to close the gap on Chen as Keeney, who won a bronze medal in the synchronised 3m event at Rio 2016, lost points with a problematic third dive.

She said: “I think in order to beat the Chinese, you really need to take risks. Something’s just so thrilling about (it), just anything can go wrong.”

Chang, who partnered Chen to win the synchronised 3m event on July 27, failed to reach a proper flight height in her first routine, which resulted in a splashy entry with her body not fully extended.

Placed last after the first round, she managed to make up the lost ground with stronger performances in the following rounds, especially her fourth dive that scored 75 points, to earn a place on the podium.

China could make a clean sweep of the Games diving programme on Aug 10, should they capture their eighth gold in Paris in the men’s 10m platform.

The country also triumphed in table tennis, beating Sweden 3-0 in the men’s team event.

Wang Chuqin, Fan Zhendong and Ma Long dominated their opponents to seal the gold. Ma has now won six Olympic golds, making him the most successful paddler in Games history.

In sport climbing, Britain’s Toby Roberts was as surprised as everyone else when he clinched the boulder and lead gold in a major upset that saw the clear favourite from Japan, Sorato Anraku, settling for silver.

In a nail-biting end that had the Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue crowd on the edges of their seats, Anraku, the last to go in the competition, slipped just short of the hold on the lead wall that he needed for the title.

His premature fall confirmed Roberts’ win, crowning him the Olympics’ first boulder and lead champion and prompting the 19-year-old to raise his hands to his head in sheer disbelief.

“To be honest, I literally have no words. I don’t think this is ever going to sink in,” he said.

Asked about the moment he realised he had come out ahead, he added: “I was happy with the silver, so I was just sat there completely happy and then to find out that I got gold, it was just an incredible moment.”

With a total 155.2 points from the combined boulder and lead events, Roberts overtook Anraku’s 145.4. Austria’s veteran climber Jakob Schubert earned back-to-back bronzes with 139.6.

Climbing is making its second Olympic appearance but the Paris Games are the first where the combined boulder and lead event has been split from speed, as is the norm for the sport.

In boulder, athletes have a time limit to negotiate four boulder “problems” on a 4.5m high wall, earning points on the highest scoring holds they manage. In lead, they aim to climb as high as possible on a 15m wall in a single attempt. 

Elsewhere, Hungary’s Kristof Rasovszky won the men’s 10km marathon swimming gold, holding off German silver medallist Oliver Klemet in a gruelling slog along the final length of the Seine river.

There was more medal joy for Hungary, with David Betlehem claiming bronze for the nation.

Four swimmers failed to finish the race, while Sweden’s Victor Johansson elected not to start, citing health concerns about the water quality.

Rasovszky, however, was not to be denied, three years after being beaten to the gold in Tokyo by another German in Florian Wellbrock.

The 27-year-old Rasovszky finished in 1hr 50min 52.7sec, 2.1sec ahead of Klemet. REUTERS