Fu wins record-equalling fourth gold

Fu Mingxia, a world champion at 12, pulled off a record-equalling fourth Olympic diving gold medal in Sydney on Thursday when she retained the women's three-metre springboard title.

Fu, now 23, prevailed in a close duel with 18-year-old Chinese team mate Guo Jingjing, clinching victory with a superb final dive to match the achievements Pat McCormick and Greg Louganis from the United States, the only other divers in history to have won four Olympic golds.

The crowd-pleasing win completed a golden treble for China on the diving boards on Thursday after two runaway triumphs for Chinese pairs in synchronised diving events introduced to the Olympic programme in Sydney.

Li Na and Sang Xue won the women's synchronised platform and Xiao Hailiang and Xiong Ni prevailed in the men's synchronised three-metre springboard as Xiong scooped his second gold of the Games and the fifth medal of his long Olympic career.

Fu won the 1992 Olympic platform title, completed a platform and springboard double in 1996 and has now won the springboard crown a second time.

Fu, who did not defend the highboard title she won at the last two Olympic Games, also scooped a silver medal in Sydney when she and Guo finished second behind Russians Vera Ilyina and Yulia Pakhalina in Saturday's synchronised three-metre springboard event.

Guo had brought a lead of more than eight points over Fu from Wednesday's semifinal into the final series of five dives and retained her advantage for the first three rounds of the concluding program.

But Fu, world highboard champion in 1991 as a tiny 12-year-old, heavily outscored her younger rival in the fourth round with a reverse 2-½ somersaults which netted 80.10 points to edge into the lead by 1.68 points.

Everything hinged on the last dive and again Fu displayed the stronger nerve and matchless technique, producing a reverse 1-½ somersaults with 2-½ twists which brought her 77.43 points, nearly 10 more than Guo's concluding dive.

Fu, who produced the highest-scoring dives of each of the last three rounds, won with an aggregate total of 609.42 points from five semifinal and five final dives.

Guo took the silver with 597.81 and Germany's Doerte Lindner the bronze with 574.35, edging out Pakhalina, who had beaten her for the gold at the European championships in Helsinki in July.

Fu, who retired and went to university after her golden double in Atlanta, returned to international competition at the 1999 World University Games in Palma, where she won both the platform and the three-metre springboard titles.

Derek Parr