LONDON – Russia set itself apart from the competition yet again at the London Olympics, winning the team synchronized swimming for its fourth consecutive gold medal in the event. The Russians showed why they've been the sport's power since the 1998 world championships. Their height, speed, legwork and synchronization in the pool is far superior to anything the rest of the world is doing. The Russians earned 98.930 points for a team free routine Friday featuring swimmers doing acrobatic flips and pirouetting like ballerinas above the water. Having already won the team technical competition, they totaled 197.030. The team of Davydova, Maria Gromova, Natalia Ishchenko, Elvira Khasyanova, Alexandra Patskevich, Svetlana Romashina, Anzhelika Timanina and Alla Shishkina swam in black, red and gold suits featuring a spider web design on the back. Davydova became the most successful swimmer in the sport with her fifth gold medal, including three in the team event. Her teammates Gromova and Khasyanova also earned their third gold medals in the team competition. Ishchenko and Romashina claimed their second gold medals of these games after winning the synchro duet event. With Russia a virtual lock for gold, it was left to China and Spain to swim for silver. China took second at 194.010, edging Spain by 0.89 points. The Spanish settled for the bronze at 193.120 four years after winning silver in Beijing. China 1-2 in diving Qui Bo led the 10-meter platform diving preliminaries with a nearly flawless display Friday night, qualifying first with 563.70 points. The 19-year-old current world platform champion took the lead for good after the second of six dives in a field loaded with big names. Qui's 21-year-old teammate, Lin Yue, finished second at 532.15, putting China in position to claim its seventh diving medal of these games. “They're really good, but I really didn't think about the other athletes,” Lin said. “I could tell it was competitive because of the noise in the venue.” Sascha Klein of Germany, the bronze medalist at last year's world championships, was third at 525.05. His teammate, Martin Wolfram, was fourth at 496.80. The top 18 divers advanced to the semifinals, with the top 12 making the final. Mexico's two divers were close behind the Germans. German Sanchez was fifth and Ivan Garcia sixth. Both of them performed the toughest dive in the world, an inward 4 1/2 somersault tuck, that carries a 4.1 degree of difficulty. Sanchez scored 98.40 points on it, while Garcia earned 77.90. The biggest cheers were reserved for Tom Daley of Britain, who narrowly missed out on a medal in 10-meter synchro last week. He was 18th after his opening dive, then got as high as seventh before botching his fifth dive. — AP
