China Keeps Perfect Diving Streak Alive on Women’s Synchro Platform

China continues to be perfect in Olympic diving competition, as the pair of Chen Roulin and Wang Hao dominated en route to a gold medal in the women’s synchronized 10-meter platform.

The pair are the number-one and number-two platform divers in the world, and as a pair have dominated the world over the last two years. They won four legs of last year’s FINA diving World Cup, the 2011 World Championship, and the 2010 Asian Title.

It was more of the same on Tuesday as the pair dominated every phase of this competition. This leaves China perfect both in these Olympics, as well as the history of this event. Women’s synchro has been on the schedule since 2000, and the Chinese have won every title. In fact, they’ve won all but the very first World Championship as well, giving them 10-straight global titles.

The Mexican duo of Paolo Espinoza and Alejandra Orozco kept the competition close through three rounds, of just five in women’s competition, but the fourth round, as is so often true, was the separator. The Chinese averaged 9.3’s per judge on an inward 3 1/2 somersault, while Mexico scored as low as a 6 on a back 3 1/2 somersault. The Mexicans got a small degree-of-difficulty advantage, but not nearly enough to make up for the poor execution.

The final score had China in 1st with 368.40 points, Mexico in 2nd with 343.32, and the Canadian duo of Meaghan Benefito and Roseline Filion scoring bronze in 337.62. The Canadian women have long excelled on the synchronized disciplines, and this is their second bronze in as many events this year after going 0-for-2 in Beijing.

The Australians took silver at last year’s World Championships, but they switched out their top pair this year, and Loudy Wiggins and Rachel Bugg finished only 4th. Of the pair last year, Melissa Wu is focusing on the solo platform event in London, and Alex Croak (a former Olympian in both gymnastics and diving) missing the team altogether.

This is the only diving event in which the United States has no representation. The men’s 3-meter synchro will be the next medal event on Wednesday.

Full dive-by-dive results are available below. Check here for the full event report.

Rank	Nation	Dives					Total
		1	2	3	4	5
	China Chen Ruolin Wang Hao	53.40	56.40	81.00	89.28	88.32	368.40
	Mexico Paola Espinosa Alejandra Orozco	51.60	50.40	84.40	75.24	81.60	343.32
	Canada Meaghan Benfeito Roseline Filion	53.40	52.80	75.60	73.26	82.56	337.62
4	Australia Loudy Wiggins Rachel Bugg	52.20	50.40	72.90	70.29	77.76	323.55
5	Great Britain Sarah Barrow Tonia Couch	54.00	53.40	68.16	68.40	77.76	321.72
6	Germany Nora Subschinski Christin Steuer	53.40	49.80	76.80	64.38	68.40	312.78
7	Malaysia Leong Mun Yee Pandelela Rinong	52.80	54.00	70.20	60.48	71.04	308.52
8	Ukraine Yulia Prokopchuk Viktoriya Potyekhina	51.60	49.80	68.16	64.80	65.28	299.64