Fukuoka, Japan, July 19, 2023: China’s Chen Yuxi held off Olympic champion Quan Hongchang to complete a hat-trick of titles in the women’s 10m platform at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, on Wednesday.
Chen, who had won this event at Gwangju 2019 aged just 13 and again at Budapest 2022, took the gold medal with a score of 457.85 points for the five dives.
Quan, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion in the women’s 10m platform and still only 16, took the silver with 445.60, 12.25 points behind the 17-year-old triple world champion.
The gulf in class between the Chinese divers and the rest of the field was evident by the score of Canada’s bronze medal-winner Caeli McKay, who came in third with 340.25 - 117.60 behind Chen.
Chen earned 11 perfect 10s from the seven judges as the competition progressed, including four 10s on her fourth dive.
Quan was the favourite going into Wednesday’s final, as she had finished ahead of Chen in both the preliminary round and semi-final, but Chen shrugged off the effects of a cold to dive to gold.
Chen and Quan had teamed up to win the women’s 10m synchro earlier in the week, and Chen’s victory on Wednesday earned China their 10th gold medal of the world championships – nine of them in diving and one in artistic swimming acrobatic.
There will be four more diving events over the final three days of competition, ending on Saturday, July 22.