Chinese divers fend off host's charge at FISU Games

While Chinese divers kept their dominance in the diving event, host Germany jumps into the limelight with its strong performance at the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games.

Wang Weiying brought China its sixth diving gold on Monday with a wire-to-wire victory on 344.25 points in the women's 3m springboard. Her teammate Qu Zhixin completed a one-two finish for China with silver at 318.55, while Germany's Lena Hentschel and Jette Muller thrilled the home crowd by taking bronze and fourth place, respectively.

A golden Monday capped a near-perfect week for Wang, who has two golds and one silver in Berlin. The lone blemish came in the 10m platform competition where she finished runner-up to fellow Chinese Lu Wei.

Qu Zhixin of China competes in the women's 3m springboard. [photo:xinhua]

"The environment is amazing. I am very happy to be able to compete in so many different events," Wang said.

After five competition days, China has collected six gold and six silver medals in diving, while host Germany has three golds, two silvers and three bronzes under its belt - compared to just two silvers at the previous Games held in Chengdu two years ago.

The 11-strong German roster includes five Olympians, with Hentschel arriving in Berlin as a Tokyo 2020 bronze medalist.

"The German divers are looking to use home-crowd advantage to better their fourth place on the Chengdu Games medal table in 2023, when they claimed two silver medals," the FISU's official preview noted.

"Considering we are competing away from home and the hosts place great emphasis on diving, the results so far are already very good," said Fu Yuchao, leader of the Chinese diving team. "There are still some regrets, but overall the team has performed to expectation."

The diving competition of the Rhine-Ruhr Universiade will conclude on Wednesday with four gold medals up for grabs.