Tokyo 2020 star Quan Hongchan beats three other Olympic diving champions for China National Games gold
- Diving gold medal-winner at Summer Games pips Chen Yuxi again in Xian with Zhang Jiaqi and Ren Qian also in action
- The 14-year-old comes from behind to add individual gold to winning women’s team event with Guangdong earlier in National Games
Olympic champion diver Quan Hongchan has added another gold medal at the China National Games to her CV after winning the individual 10-metre platform in Xian.
This medal was arguably the most difficult of her young career as the field included three other Olympic champions – Ren Qian, Chen Yuxi and Zhang Jiaqi.
Chen, the 2019 world champion, and Zhang, the 2018 World Cup winner, won the Tokyo 2020 gold medal in the 10m synchro.
Chen finished second to Quan in the Tokyo Aquatic Centre in the women’s 10m platform final and that was the case again in Xian but only after the young Guangdong diver came from behind.
Ren Qian, the 2016 Rio Olympics 10m platform gold medallist, also challenged Quan. All four divers were level after the first dive before Chen started to pull away.
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Tokyo Olympics champion Quan Hongchan wins diving gold at China's National Games
In the end, Chen won silver for Shanghai and Ren won bronze for Sichuan with Quan taking gold on 419.25 points, almost 20 points clear of Chen. Ren was another 10 points back.
Fellow Olympic champion Shi Tingmao, who won the 3m springboard solo and synchronised golds in Tokyo, pulled out of the solo event in Xian after picking up an injury in the synchronised diving final on Friday.
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Shi got through the final and helped Chongqing to gold but the team announced she would not compete in the individual preliminaries, which began today.
Quan’s coach said that the teenager will miss the opening ceremony on Wednesday as she needs to train despite her events having already finished.