Guo wins 3rd straight 3m springboard national title
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Olympic Champion Guo Jingjing pocketed the women's diving individual 3m springboard title at the ongoing China's 11th National Games in Ji'nan on Thursday.
It has been her third consecutive title at the national events.
Guo, who participated in the Games four times and won the championships at the 9th and 10th National Games, gained a total of 421.2 points after five rounds of competition, overtaking Wu Minxia from Shanghai, also her synchronized diving partner at almost all the world-level diving events, with 25.35 points.
Although lacking the challenge from foreign teams, competition in the national events was still fierce as Guo had to confront Wu Minxia, her fellow to win four Olympic gold medals with.
This was also generally regarded as the opportunity for them to possibly change their "rank" at China's women's diving team.
At the semifinal on Wednesday, Guo was just 0.95 points ahead of Wu. But she presented such a perfect performance in the final that all her attempts got the highest mark over 80.
Wu, representing Shanghai, kept following Guo at the second place till the last with 395.85 and World Champion He Zi from Guangdong maintained the third with 380.4 points.
As the pivotal figure of China's national diving team, Guo has dominated the event since she was first crowned at 2004 Athens Olympics and successfully defended her title at 2008 Beijing Olympics.
At the world Championships in Rome this July, she continued winning stretch and collected her fifth consecutive world 3m springboard title and won the synchronized event gold medal for the fifth time in a row, continuing to prove her dominance over this event.
However, almost all the glories in the international synchronized events were shared by Wu Minxia.
Sitting again at the right-hand side of Guo Jingjing, Wu said at the after-match press conference that she was satisfied with the silver medal, her first individual event in the national games.
"I don't even think over winning a gold medal and my task is to tutor my younger partner in the coming 3m synchronized events on Saturday," she said.
Guo said she was also happy for the gold medal but she didn't feel well recently, which may require her to take a good rest after the games.
"My plan for the near future is to continue training myself and some younger divers, who just enter the national team," said Guo.
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