Olympics-Diving-China's Chen wins women's 3-metre springboard gold

By Kane Wu

PARIS (Reuters) -China's Chen Yiwen won the gold medal in the women's 3-metre springboard on Friday at the Paris Olympics, extending China's winning streak in the 2024 Games diving events to seven.

Australia's Maddison Keeney took silver and China's Chang Yani won the bronze medal.

Chen established her lead from the first round and carried on with consistent execution in form and entry to finish off on 376 points. She was the only diver on Friday that scored over 70 points in each round.

Twenty-five-year-old Chen, who led the preliminary round and the semi-final by a large margin, said she was "pretending to be chill" but was actually under tremendous pressure.

"My heart was beating so fast from the warm-up all the way through the last dive," she told reporters after the event. "Then when I finished the last dive I suddenly calmed down, like I had just let out a long breath."

Keeney, 28, scored the highest single dive score of 78.6 points in her last routine - a forward two and a half somersaults coupled with two twists, which carried the highest difficulty level.

That performance however was not good enough to close the gap on Chen as Keeney, who won a bronze medal in the synchronised 3-metre event in Rio 2016, lost points with a problematic third dive.

"I think in order to beat the Chinese, you really need to take risks," said Keeney, who became the first Australian diver to win an Olympic medal in the event.

"Something's just so thrilling about (it), just anything can go wrong," Keeney said.

"You don't think about that stuff in training... you're physically shaking, your heart's pounding... It's a different beast... It absolutely is what you live for," she said.

Chang, who partnered Chen to win the synchronised 3-metre event on July 27, failed to reach a proper flight height in her first routine, which resulted in a splashy entry with her body not fully extended.

Placed last after the first round, she managed to make up the lost ground with stronger performance in the following rounds, especially her fourth dive that scored 75 points, to earn a place on the podium.

"After the first dive, I realized I had to deliver quality performance in the following routines to have a shot at it (winning a medal)," the 22-year-old said.

"I just went all out. There was no pressure then. I just had to keep going for it," she said.

Among the fans cheering for China on Friday were the country's newly crowned Olympic champions Quan Hongchan, who claimed gold in both individual and synchronised 10-metre platform events, and Xie Siyi, who beat his teammate, world champion Wang Zongyuan in the men's 3-metre springboard on Thursday.

The only event remaining in the Paris diving programme is the men's 10-metre platform on Saturday, in which China could scoop its eighth of the eight possible golds on offer.

(Reporting by Kane Wu; Editing by Ken Ferris, Alison Williams and Hugh Lawson)