China Gets Off to Good Start in Swim Contest

An Olympic champion and a diver not yet in her teens helped China get off to a formidable start at the World Swimming Championships today.

Xu Yanmei, the 1988 gold medalist in Seoul, and Fu Mingxia, a 12-year-old who enjoys hot food, fruit and music, finished 1-2 in preliminaries to lead the way into the finals of women’s platform diving.

Xu turned in the dives of the day on her last two rounds to push past her tiny teammate and American Wendy Williams for the top spot.

After eight dives that pared the field to 12 for Friday’s finals, Xu had 435.03 points to 406.80 for Fu, the platform champion at last summer’s Goodwill Games.

Williams, a bronze medalist in Seoul, was third with 402.15 points, with Kim Chun Ok of North Korea fourth. The second U.S. diver, Cokey Smith, also made the finals, finishing eighth.

“I’m happy with my performance. I’m just going home to ice everything so I’m not too stiff tomorrow,” said Williams, who read a book on positive thinking at poolside between dives. “And what I’m going to focus on for the final is exciting the crowd and the judges.”

The championships opened on a mild, sunny day at Perth’s Superdrome complex with preliminaries in synchronized swimming as well. And American hopes received a boost there.

Kristen Babb was second behind Canada’s Sylvie Frechette, who got the day’s only perfect 10 on her way to a total of 98.360 points in solo preliminaries. Babb, who had five 9.9’s, totaled 98.160 and said she was surprised by Frechette’s perfect score from an Australian judge.

“I don’t think anyone is a 10, not me, not Sylvie, not anyone. But we are in a subjective sport,” she said.