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July 20, 2009

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Home » Sports » Swimming

Pakhalina scoops 1m gold, Wu finishes second

Russia's Julia Pakhalina led from start to finish to claim gold in the women's 1-meter springboard diving event at the world championships in Rome yesterday.

Pakhalina, the bronze medallist at the Melbourne worlds two years ago, was first after the morning's elimination round and continued to wow the judges in the final with her third dive out of five particularly impressive. She finished with an overall score of 325.05.

China's Wu Minxia and Wang Han took silver and bronze in front of packed stands at Rome's Foro Italico, although the home crowd were disappointed by Tania Cagnotto's failure to medal.

Olympic champions Chen Roulin and Wang Xin of China won the women's 10m platform synchronized diving title.

They qualified first in the preliminaries.

Chen could only manage a silver medal in the women's singles final on Saturday.

Russians also won the team tech gold medal in synchronized swimming.

Swimming to the notes of Albenise's Spanish suite, Russia scored 98.833 points. Spain took the silver medal with 97.833 points and China won bronze with 96.667 for its first medal in the discipline at a worlds.

The technical routine requires teams to use a series of elements that must be performed in a specific order. Teams choose their own music and add additional choreography but cannot perform elements out of order.

Russians dominate

Prior to the last worlds in Melbourne, Australia, two years ago, team tech and team free were combined for one set of medals. Russia also won team tech in 2007 when the event first stood on its own.

Russia has also won both gold medals in synchro at the last three Olympics.

"You can always improve and you can always do better," Russia's Anna Nasekina said.

"This is a new team. I am the only one who was part of the Beijing squad, although I did not perform in the competition."

The organizers again had to alter the schedule yesterday for the open water events due to rough seas.

All events were confirmed for Rome's seaside in Ostia after organizers had considered a switch to Lake Bracciano north of Rome.




 

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