Chinese divers won 12 of the 13 gold medals at the world championships, but Australian Cassiel Rousseau snapped their streak at 37 titles in a row in the final event Saturday.
Rousseau, whose grandfather won 1956 Olympic track cycling gold for France, rallied past Lian Junjie of China in the men’s platform final, tallying 520.85 points to prevail by 8.50. Yang Hao of China took bronze.
Rousseau had a half-point more in total difficulty than both Chinese divers, plus didn’t count any score lower than a 7.5 over the six rounds. He was eighth at the Tokyo Olympics and fourth at last year’s worlds.
“I knew that I was going to come in first place before that final dive,” said Rousseau, a former acrobatic gymnast who picked up the sport a little more than five years ago. “To get a gold medal so early in my career is just incredible.”
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Lian and Yang each had a dive where they counted a 6.5. Lian had a scant 2.3-point lead over Rousseau going into the penultimate round, where he had his lowest-scoring dive to fall behind the Aussie.
China’s reigning Olympic platform champion Cao Yuan and reigning world platform champion Yang Jian were not on its roster at these worlds.
Before the men’s platform final, China won the first 12 events to run its streak to 37 consecutive gold medals at diving worlds dating to 2019.
China grabbed golds from its veteran stars, including Tokyo Olympic champions Chen Yuxi (women’s platform) and Wang Zongyuan (men’s springboard). And from would-be first-time Olympians in 2024, such as Chen Yiwen (women’s springboard).
The margins of victory in all 12 events were more than 10 points.
China won all 13 golds in 2022. In 2019, it won all 12 events that it entered, but did not contest one of the mixed-gender synchronized events that is not on the Olympic program. Before Rousseau, the last diver to win a world title over the Chinese was Brit Tom Daley on the men’s platform in the last event of the 2017 Worlds.
China has never swept the golds at an Olympics, coming one shy in 2008, 2016 and 2021.
Mexico emerged as the second-deepest diving nation at these worlds, winning six medals after going medal-less in 2022.
Osmar Olvera, who at 17 was the youngest Mexican Olympian across all sports in Tokyo, took silver in both the 1m and 3m springboard events (the 1m is not on the Olympic program).
Olvera, 14th at the Tokyo Games, did not compete at last year’s worlds after shoulder surgery the previous winter.
Mexico has more Olympic medals in diving (15) than any other sport, but its divers had funding cut this year. Athletes raised money in various ways, such as through OnlyFans, creating a coffee brand and raffling off a 2014 Mercedes E250 at $100 per ticket.
The U.S. earned one world medal among the eight events on the Olympic program, a synchronized platform bronze from Jessica Parratto and Delaney Schnell.
