China wins big in mixed 10m synchro at aquatics worlds

The Chinese duo of Junjie Lian and Qian Ren scored a world title in the mixed 10-metre synchro event on Saturday at the aquatics worlds in Hungary, taking the victory by nearly 30 points.

Lois Toulson and Matthew Lee of Great Britain placed second with 323.28, well short of the 352.98 by the Chinese tandem.

Mi Rae Kam and Hyon Il Myong of North Korea were third at 318.12. 

Canada's Meaghan Benfeito and Nathan Zsombor-Murray tallied 307.80 points to finish in fifth. 

"China was far ahead," Lee said. "They have very good divers. Maybe on one day we will be able to catch them."

Ren and Lian won all four meets at the FINA Diving World Series this season.

At 14, Zsombor-Murray is the youngest competitor in diving at the championships.

"It's really an honour," Zsombor-Murray said. "I'm super happy."

In the women's 1m springboard, Maddison Keeney of Australia finished first with a total of 314.95 points, Russia's Nadezhda was second at 304.70, and Elena Bertochhi of Italy earned 296.40 to round out the podium. There were no Canadians in the field for this event.

Nerves got the better of Keeney at the 2015 worlds when she flunked her final dive and blew any chance of a podium place, but there was no such embarrassment this time.

"I wanted to redeem myself. I didn't need to doubt myself. I didn't need to think about what happened in the past because I knew that all the training, all the hard work I'd done, would pay off," Keeney said.

Meanwhile, the Russian pair of Ilia Zakharov and Evgenii Kuznetsov overtook Xie Siyi and Cao Yuan of China with their last dive to win the men's 3m synchro. 

Russia finished with 450.30 points, scoring 100.32 on their sixth dive, China came in second at 443.40, while the Ukraine's Oleg Kolodiy and Illya Kvasha were third with 429.99. 

Olympic champions Jack Laugher and Chris Mears of Britain missed out by finishing fourth.

Francois Imbeau-Dulac and Philippe Gagne of Canada placed ninth with 390.06 points.