Boudia stuns Qiu for platform diving gold

Posted on August 13, 2012, Monday

SENSATIONAL VICTORY: David Boudia competes in the men’s 10m platform final during the diving event at the London 2012 Olympic Games. — AFP photo

David Boudia became the first American since the great Greg Louganis to win the men’s 10m platform gold with a sensational last-dive victory over China’s world champion Qiu Bo at the Olympics Saturday.

Boudia held his nerve to produce a stunning back two-and-a-half somersault with two-and-a-half twists to deny the hot Chinese favourite gold with a winning 102.60 point dive.

Qiu, who had dominated the prelims and semi-final, could only come up with a 100.80 for the same dive to leave him with the silver medal, ahead of British crowd favourite Tom Daley.

Boudia, who only scraped into the semi-finals in 18th place in the prelims, finished his six dives with 568.65 points to beat Qiu (566.85) by just 1.80 points.

The partisan home crowd cheered wildly as Daley claimed bronze with 556.95, which he celebrated by leaping into the pool with his team-mates. But Qiu, who has dominated the event since the Beijing Games, looked stricken not to have taken gold.

Boudia’s victory, following Russian Ilya Zakharov’s victory in the men’s 3m springboard final, left China with six of the eight diving medals, short of the coveted clean-sweep once again.

“USA diving has four medals at the (London) Olympics and maybe 1992 was the last time and this brings a lot of hope for everyone on the team,” Boudia said. — AFP

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