FILE – Chen Yuxi of China, left, silver medal and Quan Hongchan of China, gold medal react after profitable gold medal in girls’s diving 10m platform closing on the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on the 2020 Summer season Olympics, on Aug. 5, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. Chinese language divers are targeted on profitable all eight gold medals on the Paris Olympics.. (AP Photograph/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)
Chinese language divers received seven of eight gold medals on the final Olympics in Tokyo, termed one of many biggest performances in Olympic historical past.
Much more is anticipated this time in Paris.
China has dominated diving for many years. Nevertheless it’s by no means pulled off the elusive gold sweep on the Video games. The Folks’s Day by day — the official newspaper of the Communist Celebration — termed this lapse “regrettable” in a current article.
How’s that for strain?
“I hope that each one of us can stand on the highest of the rostrum,” Tokyo gold medalist Quan Hongchan mentioned in an interview on state-run tv.
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They could, and the document is already staggering.
Beginning with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics the place China claimed its first diving gold, it has received 47 of 64 gold medals. Add to that 23 silver and 10 bronze. In case you begin counting from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Chinese language have received 27 of 32 gold.
That’s virtually perfection, however somebody at all times spoils the occasion — like American David Boudia, Australian Matthew Mitcham, Briton Tom Daley or Russian Ilya Zakharov.
The Folks’s Day by day urged the crew to “launch an all-out bid this time for gold medals in all diving occasions.”
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Eight could be the allure. That quantity is seen as fortuitous in Chinese language tradition. Observe the 2008 Beijing Video games opened on Aug. 8, 2008, at 8 p.m.
Quan was solely 14 when she received gold three years in the past on the 10-meter platform. Teammate Chen Yuxi, the gold medalist in synchro on the platform, was solely 15. Each are again and doubtless in a category by themselves.
For the lads, Wang Zongyuan was the silver medalist on the 3-meter springboard in Tokyo behind teammate Xie Siyi and must be the favourite within the Paris Olympics.
The American problem
The U.S. Olympic dive crew (L-R) Kassidy Cook dinner, Sarah Bacon, Jessica Parratto, Delaney Schnell, Alison Gibson, Andrew Capobianco, Carson Tyler, Greg Duncan and Tyler Downs pose for a portrait. Alex Slitz/Getty Photographs/AFP
This will likely be Drew Johansen’s fourth straight Olympics because the U.S. diving coach. The pinnacle coach at Indiana College is assisted by Wenbo Chen, the China-born coach on the College of Minnesota. Additionally on the workers is Purdue coach David Boudia, the Olympic gold medalist on the platform in 2012.
Three silver medalists from Tokyo return: Andrew Capobianco, Jessica Parratto and Delaney Schnell. All of them made the rostrum in synchronized occasions, and people occasions could provide the most effective probabilities for the Individuals and others.
Parratto will dive once more with Schnell within the 10-meter synchronized platform, and Capobianco is on the 3-meter springboard. He didn’t qualify in synchronized. Schnell and Daryn Wright will compete on the platform.
READ: China’s Quan, 14, wins Olympic gold with three excellent dives
“The world has been catching as much as the Chinese language in all of the occasions besides for ladies’s platform,” Johansen mentioned. “Chinese language girls on the tower are nonetheless method forward of the world.”
Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook dinner have a shot within the 3-meter synchronized springboard, and Bacon and Alison Gibson ought to contend as people within the 3-meter springboard.
The brand new identify to look at is Carson Tyler in each the 10-meter platform and 3-meter springboard, a rarity collaborating in each occasions and a reminder of Greg Louganis’ double-double gold medals in 1984 and ’88.
“Carson has proven up as an ideal psychological performer,” Johansen mentioned.
“We’ve managed to beat China in sure occasions through the years and I really feel like some parity has come to the game,” he added. “Now we have been hovering round these gold medals and factors away from getting them.”
Johansen mentioned a part of the technique is to place the strain on the Chinese language by making an attempt dives with a better diploma of issue, which earn extra factors if efficiently delivered.
“It’s a risk-reward recreation,” he mentioned.
The psychological recreation
Johansen credit Xu Yiming, who coached Chinese language Olympic divers from the mid-Eighties into the 2000s, for sharing his technical data with the remainder of the world. Johansen calls Xu a mentor from time they spent collectively when Johansen was teaching at Duke College.
“He taught me loads of their bodily strategies proper after he retired,” Johansen mentioned.
Having integrated that data, the following plateau is psychological conditioning.
READ: Chinese language diver lifts lid on ‘very boring’ coaching after extra Tokyo gold
“I bodily couldn’t prepare them any higher,” he mentioned. “I didn’t know anyone on this planet who was doing it any higher. The one method I used to be going to get my athletes to succeed was to organize them mentally, and I didn’t understand how to do this.”
Johansen mentioned he just lately has begun assembling what he calls a “efficiency suppose tank” to show psychological focus and sports activities psychology. With out giving names, he mentioned the crew features a Navy SEAL, a e-book writer and others who research executing below strain.
This system was began only some months in the past and is incorporating Paris, however the main focus is the 2028 Los Angeles Video games.
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“We’ve realized China’s bodily strategies, but when we’re going to beat them we’ve to beat them mentally. I’m satisfied of that,” Johansen mentioned. ”Now we have a bonus over the Chinese language if we might be mentally stronger and higher performers.”
Observe Inquirer Sports activities’ particular protection of the Paris Olympics 2024.
