China sweeps first four Diving events:In Synch

Wang Feng and Qin Kai compete. (Credit : Paul Gilham/Getty Images)


China is halfway toward its dream of eight Diving gold medals after Qin Kai and Wang Feng won the Men's Synchronized 3m Springboard with a score of 469.08. The host nation has won all four Synchronized Diving events of the Beijing Olympics. Dmitry Sautin and Yuriy Kunakov of Russia earned silver, while Illya Kvasha and Oleksiy Prygorov of Ukraine took bronze.

Qin and Wang are the reigning world champions and were the heavy favorites coming into the event. Their supremacy was evident from start to finish -- they ranked first in each of their six dives, including an emphatic 94.50-point final dive that put them ahead of Russia by 50 points.

Legendary Russian diver Dmitry Sautin, five-time Olympian from 1992 through 2008, won his eighth Olympic medal at the age of 34. The Russian pair overcame an eighth-ranked fifth dive with a solid score on their final dive to secure silver.

The pair from Ukraine pulled ahead in a tight race for third with an 84-point fifth dive that put them temporarily in second place. Needing near-perfect final dives to reach the podium, the US and Canadian pairs fell short and Kvasha and Prygorov won bronze by 4.32 points.