China swept the gold medals at the world diving championships for the second time, going 13 for 13 in Budapest over the last eight days.
Chinese divers earned two medals in every individual event that’s on the Olympic program and won all six synchronized events, plus a team event.
In a testament to their depth, the four Chinese divers who won the individual events were different from the four Chinese divers who swept the individual golds at the Tokyo Olympics.
Yang Jian finished off the sweep by taking the men’s platform title Sunday, repeating as world champion a year after taking silver at the Olympics.
Wang Zongyuan, who took men’s springboard silver in Tokyo, swept the 1m and 3m springboard titles and teamed with Tokyo platform champion Cao Yuan for synchro springboard gold.
Chen Yuxi repeated as world champion in women’s platform, edging Tokyo gold medalist Quan Hongchan by three tenths of a point. Chen took silver in Tokyo behind Quan.
The lone blemishes came in the women’s 3m springboard and men’s platform. In the former, Canadian Mia Vallée took silver, a distant 37.9 points behind gold medalist Chen Yiwen, but 4.15 ahead of China’s Chang Yani.
Japanese 15-year-old Rikuto Tamai, who led the men’s platform final through four of six rounds, edged China’s Yang Hao for silver by 2.55 points.
It’s the second consecutive worlds that China won every event that it entered. In 2019, China won 12 golds and did not enter a team into one of the mixed-gender synchronized events that is not on the Olympic program.
In 2011, China won all 10 events at the world championships. That was before mixed-gender synchro events were added to the program.
China has never swept the golds at an Olympics, coming one shy in 2008, 2016 and 2021.
The lone non-Chinese divers to take gold in Tokyo were the British synchro platform team of Tom Daley and Matty Lee. Daley, 28, took a break from competition for at least one year post-Olympics. Lee entered worlds and took silver with Noah Williams in synchro platform and finished eighth in the individual platform.
The U.S. earned three medals -- Sarah Bacon‘s silver in the 1m springboard (not an Olympic event), Delaney Schnell and Katrina Young‘s silver in the women’s synchro platform and Schnell and Carson Tyler‘s bronze in the mixed synchro platform.
Four-time Olympic medalist David Boudia was at worlds as a coach. Boudia, 33, last competed at last June’s Olympic Trials, missing the Tokyo team, and said in the spring that he hasn’t decided if or when he will return to competition.
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