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Games-Fu wins second diving gold at World Student Games
1999-07-09
PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain - Fu Mingxia, a world diving champion at the age of 12, continued her comeback in winning style with her second diving title of the World Student Games on the three-metre springboard on Saturday. China's Fu, now 21, won the world highboard title in 1991 and 1994 and the Olympic highboard in 1992 and completed a golden double at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics on the 10-metre and three-metre boards. She missed the 1998 world championships and later that year said she would compete in these World Student Games for Qinghua University but had no thoughts of defending her Olympic titles in 2000. However, she has now set her sights on a third Olympics after all and these Games marked her first international competition since Atlanta. Fu won the 10-metre platform title from Chinese team mate Wang Rui by the tiny margin of 0.390 points on Wednesday. But she was a runaway winner in a high-class final on the three-metre board on Saturday. She scored 550.230 points from her five dives to win from world one-metre springboard champion Irina Lashko (528.300) and world three-metre springboard champion Yulia Pakhalina (521.010). Pakhalina won Thursday's one-metre title here ahead of fellow Russian Lashko. Despite her impressive victory, Fu was clearly less than satisfied with her own performance. Earlier in the week she suggested she would get better still in the build-up to the Sydney Olympics. ``When I retired it was because I was tired spiritually. After I have had some rest during these last three years I feel much better psychologically,'' she said after Saturday's win. China have brought 121 competitors to Palma. By contrast, their neighbours Mongolia arrived with only three -- all judokas -- and the two who were in action on Saturday both gained medals. Khaligh Boldbaatar won the men's category up to 73 kilograms, while Khishigbat Erdenet-Ode took the bronze in the women's up to 57 kilograms. Cuba continued their run of success in the judo hall by taking both the women's titles contested on Saturday courtesy of Driulis Gonzales (up to 57 kilograms) and Legna Verdecia (up to 52 kilograms). In tennis, top seed Alberto Portas of Spain, 84th in the ATP Tour rankings, reached the men's singles final with a 6-3 6-4 semifinal win over Lee Seung-hoon of South Korea. Portas, who is always cheered to the rafters by the partisan home crowd, has not dropped a set in the four matches he has played so far. He takes on another South Korean, second seed Lee Hyung-taik, in Sunday's final. The women's singles final will be an all-Taiwanese affair after Wang Shi-tang and Janet Lee, the first and second seeds, won their semifinals, although each lost a set in the process. They had earlier joined forces to win the women's doubles for Taiwan's first medal of the Games, comfortably beating Poland's Katarzyna Teodorwicz and Anna Zarsaka 6-1 6-4 in the final.
H.K. financial chief confirms dating Mingxia (2002-03-24)Games-Diving-Fu Mingxia Captured 2nd Gold (1999-07-10)Games-Fu wins second diving gold at World Student Games (1999-07-09)Fu Mingxia returns from hiatus with gold medal (1999-07-07)6 (11285)
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