TIANJIN, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Despite an age gap of 10 years, the newly-crowned world champions Shi Tingmao paired with Chang Yani to take the women's 3m synchronized springboard title while Chen Aisen/Yang Hao won the men's 10m synchro platform crown at the 13th Chinese National Games here on Wednesday.
It's the first time in the National Games history that athletes from different teams can make pairs or relay teams in all the events.
Shi, world and Olympic champion from Chongqing, who started to team up with the 15-year-old Chang from Hubei since the beginning of this year, led from the first dive en route to the title with 351.30 points.
Jia Dongjin/Wang Han of Hebei took the silver in 324.90 and Qu Lin/Sun Mengchen of Jiangsu placed third in 320.70.
"We just achieved our best ever results today and we performed better than we did in the worlds. The champion meant a lot to me. We won a synchro title since the mixed-team pair introduced into the National Games for the first," said the 25-year-old veteran Shi, who became the synchro champion at the FINA World Championships in Budapest one month ago.
"On the other hand, it might be my last National Games. I really want to bring more glory to my hometown and my coach Liu Ben, as well as to win more titles for China at the international competition," said Shi, who was the all-round champion at the 12th National Games.
For Chang, she was happy to win gold medals at the National Games and the Worlds with Shi. "I felt I was getting better and more confident since I worked together with Shi because she is skillful and experienced. I will work harder and try to win more golds."
In the men's 10m synchronized platform final, mixed team duet Chen Aisen, from Guangdong, and Yang Hao, from Shanxi, dominated the field from the start and snatched the gold in 496.95, beating the pre-meet gold contenders Qiu Bo/Yang Jian of Sichuan 473.58. Lin Yue/Tai Xiaohu of Beijing/Shandong finished third 440.07.
Chen, the double winner at the Rio Olympic Games, said the competition was more fierce than in the Worlds.
"We did a great job in the synchronization, that's the main reason we could beat the other rivals. We were very nervous in the final since we did not perform our best in the morning heat," said Chen, who won the synchro title with Yang Hao at the Worlds.
Yang Hao said he wished to dive 109C one more time. "I had a mistake in the 109C and I hope I could dive it again. I felt shaky legs during the final," Yang said.
Two events, including women's 10m platform and men's 3m springboard will feature heats and semifinals on Aug. 24. A total of 12 events were on offer at the quadrennial National Games. Enditem
