Chinese Divers Deliver Gold; American Hits the Board

China’s Guo Jingjing easily won her country’s third diving gold medal in the 3-meter springboard at the World Swimming Championships on Friday, and teammate Wu Min Xia won the silver.

Tania Cagnotto of Italy won the bronze.

China and Canada were tied atop the medals standings with three golds each. The United States and Russia have two golds each. The Chinese lead with nine medals overall.

Guo led after each round of the five-dive final and finished with 645.54 points in defense of her world title. She is the reigning Olympic champion too.

Wu, who had 619.05 points, also finished second to Guo in Athens.

Wu was second throughout, turning the final into a competition for the bronze.

Yulia Pakhalina, the silver medalist in 2003, was fifth behind Sweden’s Anna Lindberg.

Pouring rain and thunder delayed the final for 15 minutes. The rain resumed during the outdoor medals ceremony on Ile Saint-Helene, cutting short the medalists’ parade around the pool deck.

China has won medals in all seven diving events so far, with three remaining.

American Chelsea Davis hit her face on the diving board during the 3-meter springboard preliminaries but escaped serious injury.

Davis was attempting an inward 2 1/2 somersault in the tuck position when her face struck the board. Blood poured out of her nose, and some stunned spectators covered their faces.

German coach Lutz Buschkow jumped into the pool and pulled a crying Davis to the side. She was put on a floating stretcher and taken to the hospital, where her parents and boyfriend joined her.

Davis received a few stitches in her swollen nose, which was not broken, and returned to her hotel Friday evening.

U.S. diving team leader Bob Rydze said Davis never lost consciousness.

Edith Van Dijk of the Netherlands won the 25-kilometer women’s open water swimming race, earning her third medal of the week.

She finished first in 5 hours 25 minutes 6.6 seconds, edging Britta Kamrau of Germany by three-tenths of a second.

“The race was very hot and hard because especially the Russian girls really try to push hard,” Van Dijk said. “Just after the last turn, I wanted to stay inside because it is a little bit shorter.”

Kamrau earned the silver in 5:25.06.9. Laura La Piana of Italy took bronze in 5:25.11.5.

“I had the longer way,” Kamrau said. “We arrived at the same time, but she touched earlier. The one on the inside [Van Dijk] had an advantage and it is not very fair.”

Competing in her final world meet before retiring, Van Dijk was the 10K champion and the bronze medalist in the 5K. She has 14 medals in seven world championships.

In men’s water polo, Serbia and Montenegro and Russia finished first in their groups with 3-0 records and automatically qualified for the quarterfinals.

The United States lost to Serbia and Montenegro, 8-4, and will play Italy today for a possible quarterfinal berth.

The Americans finished 2-1 in their group, beating Cuba and Japan.

In other matches, Cuba edged Japan, 9-8; Russia held off Spain, 8-7, and Italy routed South Africa 15-4.