Canadian Upsets Chinese Divers in Women's Platform

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, July 17, 2003

Canadian Upsets Chinese Divers in Women's Platform

Canada's Emille Heymans edged Chinese teenager diver Lao Lishi by less than two points to win the women's platform title at the 10th FINA World Championships here on Wednesday.

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Canada's Emille Heymans edged Chinese teenager diver Lao Lishi by less than two points to win the women's platform title at the 10th FINA World Championships here on Wednesday.

Heymans, 22, winner at the 1999 Pan-American Games and an Olympic silver-medalist for platform synchro event in Sydney, won the title with 597.45 points, 1.89 more than her 16-year-old Chinese rival in the five-dive final.

The Canadian's last dive, a back two and a half somersaults with one and a half twists, earned her a field-high score of 95.88points.

Lao, 16, winner at last year's Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, had to settle for the silver medal, and her teammate Li Na,22, took the bronze with 563.42. Li was runner-up to Lao at the Asian Games and was the bronze-medalist for platform synchro eventboth in Sydney and the 2001 world championships in Fukuoka, Japan.

Russian Olega Zhupina, who turns 20 next month, finished fourthwith 526.26. She was the double world champion in 1998 in Perth, Australia, for both platform and platform synchro events.

Australians Loudy Tourky and Lynda Dackiw were the silver-medalists for the platform synchro event here on Sunday. Hot favored though, Tourky eventually finished fifth and Dackiew was far away down for the 10th.

Russian Svetlana Timoshinina, bronze medalist for the platform synchronized event here on Sunday, became a surprise early exit. She was eliminated for finishing just 21st in the earlier preliminaries.

Italian marathon swimmer Viola Valli made it double as she won her second open-water gold medal in the women's 10 kilometers raceby clocking the fastest time of one hour 59 minutes 49.9 seconds, in a field of 24 racers. The magic 31-year-old won the 5km race here on Sunday.

The Italian sportswoman won both 5km and 25km races in the lastworld championships in Fukuoka, Japan.

German Angela Mauer was second in 1:59:51.1 and Dutchwoman Edith van Dijk, eighth in the 5km race on Sunday, finished third in 1:59:53.0.

Russian Vladimir Diattchine, third in the earlier 5km race in the championships, won the 10km race in 1:50:58.8.

Germany's Christian Hein, runner-up in the 5km event, had to settle for the silver again, in a time of 1:51:06.5 and local favorite David Meca was third in 1:51:08.4.

Russia's Evgueni Kochkarov, winner of the 5km race, did not swim in the 10km event on Wednesday.

The discipline's third and last event -- the 25km races -- willbe held on Saturday. This is the first time of this northeastern Spanish port city to hold such a long-distance race.

The participants will plunge into the water from the Portal de la Pau, just opposite the Columbus monument and, after leaving theport through the new port entrance, continue along a route parallel to Barcelona's coastline before returning to the startingline at the port.

Thursday, the fifth day at the world championships here, will witness the fight for the two gold medals on the day -- one for the synchronized swimming event of solo and the other, in the men's one-meter springboard diving.

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