Beijing - Chinese world and Olympic champion Guo Jingjing took the limelight of the Water Cube together with her partner Wu Minxia as they retained their women's three-meter springboard synchronized gold at Beijing Olympic Games here on Sunday.
Guo and Wu, took the lead after the second round in the final to collect 343.50 points, beating their closest rivals Julia Pakhalina and Anastasia Pozdnyakova of Russia, who posted 323.61, by almost 20 points.
"I just considered the final as a normal competition, in order to reduce the pressure," said Guo, also gold medallist of the women's 3m springboard in Athens. "I did not do anything special to prepare for it."
Heike Fischer and Ditte Kotzian of Germany, silver medallist of the event in the 2007 Melbourne world championships, finished third with 318.90.
The German pair had trailed the American tandem Kelci Bryant and Ariel Rittenhouse in the first three rounds, but they tied the points after the fourth dive, and finally managed to surpass them in the last round.
Guo Jingjing (R) and Wu Minxia perform in the women's synchronised 3m spring boarddiving competition final at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing on August 10, 2008. Guo and Wu won the first diving gold for Chinese delegation. [Agencies]
The Chinese always has advantages in the women's 3m springboard, both individual and synchronized.
The "diving queen" Guo, 26, is the four-time world champion in both of the events, while Wu, 22, won three golds in the 3m springboard synchronized in three world championships with Guo, as she missed the 2005 Montreal worlds.
Wu, runner-up of the women's 3m sprongboard in 2004 Athens Olympic Games, always trailed Guo in international competitions.
It's Pakhalina's third Olympic Games, who's the winner of the event in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the silver medallsit in the Athens Olympics with her former partner Vera Ilyna.
She has paired up with Pozdnyakova since Ilyna's retirement, and the new pair took silver in all legs of the 2008 World Series, in Nanjing, Sheffied and Tijuana, respectively.
"We are young," said Bryant. "I'm 19. We'll keep training for 2012. This was our first time, and next time we'll know what it's going to be like."
Australian Sharleen Stratton and Briony, bronze medallist of the event in 2007 Melbourne Worlds, finished fifth in 311.34.
