After bagging five gold medals at the Sydney Olympic Games four years ago, the Chinese diving team was called "the Dream Team", and they justified that by winning another six in Athens.

Sydney runner-up Hu Jia bagged the last and the sixth gold medal for China Saturday in the men's platform final while defending champion Tian Liang added a bronze.

"I am so happy. I didn't expect we could be so successful at these Games because there are a lot of strong opponents," said Chinese team leader Zhou Jihong, women's platform titlist at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

"Diving in other parts of the world is developing really fast and China can no longer enjoy comfortable wins in competition," Zhou said.

"We just accomplished a hard task and the outcome was surprisingly good. I am proud with my athletes and thank the coaches for their hard work," she added.

China set off to a golden start on Aug. 14, when the diving event opened with synchronized events in men's platform and women's springboard.

Tian redeemed his loss four years ago, when he and Hu fell to Russian pair Dmitri Sautin and Igor Loukachine for the silver while Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia grabbed the women's title from defending champions Vera Ilyina and Yulia Pakhalina of Russia.

The 24-year-old Guo continued to win the 3m board individual final two weeks later to solidify her position as the number one Chinese woman diver while Wu finished second.

The women's 10m platform synchronized victory was within China's easy reach as Lao Lishi and Li Ting, both at 17, pulled off the third gold for the defending champions on Aug. 16.

But the men's 3m springboard final turned up to be the dramatic of all as Chinese pair Peng Bo and Wang Kenan squandered their lead by receiving 0.00 point in their fifth and last dive due to failure to finish bottom.

World champions Demitry Sautin and Alexandre Dobroskok did not have any luck either as Sautin blundered in the last dive after American brothers Troy Dumais and Justin Dumais made their own mistake.

Greece duo Nikolaos Siranidis and Thomas Bimis took the advantage and emerged the surprise winners, which sent the Greek spectators into exultation.

However, an inspired Peng turned his regret into celebration by beating Athens World Cup winner Alexander Despatie and Sautin for the individual glory.

Chantelle Newbery shared the Chinese divers' limelight as the mother of a two-year-old boy sealed the 10m platform individual title for China.

"The fierce competition require the divers to be mistake-free. Many foreign athletes are able to handle very difficult dives well now and the one who makes least mistake during competition will be the winner," said Zhou.

Australia stood in second in the diving medals table with one gold, one silver and four bronze while hosts Greece were third with one gold.

Russia, two golds winner in Sydney, went home with two silver and two bronze from Athens and Canada, boasting two platform world champions Despatie and Emilie Heymans, collected one silver and one bronze.

Britain attained their first ever diving medal in 44 years after bagging a silver in the men's synchronized platform while Germany also had a silver.

(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2004)