Eight reigning Olympic champions including Wu Minxia and Mattew Mitcham will be competing at the second leg of four-stop FINA Diving World Series here from Mar. 27-28.
As the hosts, diving powerhouse China sent six Olympic gold medalists to the two-day event, but four-time Olympic champion Guo Jingjing will skip the women's 3-meter springboard. He Chong, gold medalist of the men's springboard and Wang Xin, women's synchro platform champion, will also miss the event.
In the women's 3m springboard, Russian Olympic silver medalist Julia Pakhalina will be one of the gold contenders against two Chinese duo Wu Minxia and young hopeful He Zi.
The men's springboard will be fielded with Russian veteran Dmitry Sautin, Mexican Yahel Castillo, German Patrick Hausding, and Chinese world champion Qin Kai and Zhang Xinhua. Alexdran Despatie of Canada, Olympic silver medalist, quit the event due to back injury.
Chen Ruolin, who dominated on the women's 10m platform at the Olympic Games, will try to defend her titles in both individual and synchro. While Paola Espinosa of Mexico, Melissa Wu of Australia and Tonia Couch of Britain will be her strongest rivals.
Mattew Mitcham and Zhou Luxin, winner and runner-up on the men's platform at the Olympics, will set up their second encounter here after Zhou won in Doha, Qatar, the first leg of the World Series four days ago where China swept eight gold medals on offer.
FINA Diving World Series, which was started since 2007, invites divers only based on their rankings.
(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2009)
