12-Year-Old Diver Becomes World’s Youngest Champ in Water Sports

Fu Mingxia became the youngest world champion in water sports today.

The 12-year-old from China, who was kicked out of a school gymnastics program at age 8 because she was getting too old, beat much older, more experienced opponents in winning the women’s platform title at the World Swimming Championships.

Elena Miroshina of the Soviet Union won a tight race for second place with a spectacular final dive, while American Wendy Williams took third when Olympic champion Xu Yanmei of China faltered in the late rounds.

Fu finished with 426.51 points to 402.87 for Miroshina and 400.23 for Williams. Xu finished fourth with 399.12.

Fu, the platform champ at last summer’s Goodwill Games, was the youngest entrant in any event in the 19-year history of this meet and thus the youngest world champion.

That’s an honor she’s guaranteed to retain for a long time. The world body of aquatic sports, FINA, voted this week to place a 14-year-old age limit on future Olympics, world championships and World Cup meets. Fu will be OK for the 1992 Olympics because of a loophole in the new rule, but for the time being her foes can breath easy.

“She would be a phenomenal diver no matter how old she was,” Williams said.

Fu was second to Xu in Thursday’s preliminaries and said she did not expect to win. But she hit the bull’s-eye time and time again in the finals.

“I was not even thinking about getting a medal,” she said. “I was just thinking about the next dive.”

Fu was the first champion crowned at the meet, which also featured the start of men’s diving and women’s water polo on its second day.

Edwin Jongejans of the Netherlands, who finished eighth in the 3-meter diving at the 1988 Olympics, topped the preliminaries for Saturday’s finals with 573.78 points. Chinese divers were second and third--Wang Yijie at 571.11 and Tan Liangde at 563.34.

America’s Mark Lenzi was fourth with 555.90 points despite competing with tendinitis of the left ankle that hurt every time he bounced on the board.

Mark Bradshaw, the U.S. diver of the year, was sixth at 543.81. The top 12 in prelims advance.

The United States scored a big upset in women’s water polo, beating defending champion Australia 8-7. Margo Miranda gave the U.S. an 8-6 lead on a shot with 4:10 remaining before Australia closed the gap with a goal one minute later.