THE CANADIAN PRESS
BEIJING — China is dominating Olympic diving once again. But the overseer of the Canadian team says his divers have what it takes to spoil China’s quest for a golden sweep.
"We can do it," Dive Canada technical director Mitch Geller. "When you look at Emilie Heymans on a good day on 10-metre, if you ask me, her diving is maybe the most spectacular of any diving in the world.
"Alex (Despatie) has put pressure on the Chinese in platform and in three-metre springboard and that’s what it comes down to. Is he as good as them? It depends on the day."
Canadian divers will have plenty of opportunities to test China’s mettle over the next few days, including a rematch between Despatie and China’s Qin Kai on Monday in the men’s three-metre springboard. Despatie was runner-up to Qin at last year’s world championship.
Chinese divers have been dominant on the Olympic stage. China took five of eight diving gold medals at the 2000 Games in Sydney, where synchronized diving made its debut, won six of eight four years later in Athens and earned nine of 10 gold medals at last year’s world championship.
The country’s dominance in the sport extends well back in Olympic history. Chinese women have won gold in the individual three-metre springboard in every Games since current Canadian team chef de mission Sylvie Bernier topped the podium in 1984.
This time, China expects to win all eight diving golds. It’s what Chinese divers have trained for, day after day for most of their lives. They were three for three after competition Tuesday.
Diving in China isn’t the obscure niche sport it is in Canada. It’s highly regarded because of the success of the Chinese team. The divers’ high profiles in this country encourages youngsters to participate.
While Canada’s top divers toil at their various clubs with their coaches across the country and assemble for the odd training camp, the Chinese team lives and trains together in a hothouse environment in Xi’an.
"They train seven days a week and all they do is diving," said Canadian diver Roseline Filion. "It’s so different from the way we live in Canada."
The Canadian team has joined the Chinese for training camps at the Shaanxi Provincial Swimming Center and has seen what they do.
"Every day is a training camp. Every day," Geller said. "We saw kids from, had to be six, seven, eight doing tons and tons of fundamentals over and over and still having a pretty good time. Why they are good is because they screen tons of kids and they put them through fundamental training.
"Then the cream rises to the top and by the time you get to a national team level in China, you are a potential world champion or Olympic champion."
The Chinese divers don’t have better coaching or technology than Canada, says Geller.
"What they have is they’ve adhered to the basics and have not gotten distracted by looking for the magic bullet in the sport," he explained.
"They still adhere to motivation, inspiration and hard work, which are the basics of sport."
But some of their elite divers pay a price for that level of dedication said Anne Montminy, who won a silver and bronze for Canada in Sydney and is in Beijing providing television commentary.
"They train a lot and a lot of them have had detached retinas because they’ve spun around so much," Montminy said. "It’s a really common injury with these guys.
"The really good ones, you’ll hear they’re out for six months because they’ve detached retinas doing so much spinning and trampoline."
Geller says the Chinese model wouldn’t work in Canada.
"We can’t demand the same amount of time out of the kids," he said. "We for sure can be looking at pre-adolescent training on a much more intense level.
"That’s what the (the Chinese) do and that’s where the race is on. You’ve got to instill all the skills, all the flexibility and all the movement patterns and you want to do that before they get to adolescence. We can ask for higher workloads than we have been."
Dive Canada is working on an exchange that will have 12 to 16 of Canada’s young talented divers living and training with the Chinese at the Shaanxi Center before next April, Geller added.
"We’ll see if their eyes bug out of their head, but at the very least they’ll see there’s other kids out there working really hard at the sport and having fun doing it," he said.
Heymans faces Wang Xin and Chen Ruolin, winners of Tuesday’s synchronized diving gold, in the individual women’s platform next week.
Laval’s Filion and Montreal’s Meaghan Benfeito were seventh Tuesday in the women’s synchronized platform, which marked the first time since synchro was introduced that Canada didn’t win a medal in that event.
Blythe Hartley of North Vancouver takes on China’s golden girl Guo Jingjing in the three-metre springboard starting Friday. Guo is the defending champion and has won four straight world titles.
