Chinese pair retain synchro diving world title; Daley and Brick ninth

 CHINA'S Olympic champions Huo Liang and Lin Yue retained their world platform synchro diving title with a dominant display in Rome.

VALUABLE LESSON: Great Britain's Tom Daley and Max Brick were ninth at their World Championship debut together in Rome

They were never behind in six rounds, beating nearest rivals, USA's David Boudia and Thomas Finchum, by a massive 26-point margin.

Cuba’s Jose Antonio Guerra Oliva and Jeinkler Ernesto Aguirre Manso completed the podium as China ended the diving events in Italy with seven golds.

Meanwhile, new world platform champion Tom Daley and British team-mate Max Brick were ninth in their major championship debut together.

The fledgling double act only competed together for the first time at the World Series in Sheffield early this year and won a silver in the FINA Grand Prix in Florida in May.

“It wasn’t our best performance but we did execute some of dives really well and got the highest score on one of them which just shows our potential as a pair,” said Daley.

“I’m quite happy considering we haven’t been together as a pair for long and we’ll both take away a lot of positives from our performance.”

Brick also believes the new partnership will quickly put right the lessons learned in Rome.
 
“This is a new partnership and we will be working together a lot more over the next few months and years,” he said.

“I’ve gained a lot of experience here this week. Training and diving with Tom gives you that and it has been fantastic.”

Meanwhile, British diving performance director Alexei Evangulov believes the last week in the Italian capital will be a vital springboard for future success on the road to London 2012.
 
“I think this was a great performance from the team,” he said.

“We have had nine finalists, seven top eight finishes and one gold medal.
 
“I think the performance of the team has made me hopeful of future successful performances because we have been mainly successful here.
 
“My overall impression of the team has been very good and I think they performed better than I expected them to. It has been very good.
 
“What is going to be good for the future is that we have some good ‘b’ level and junior athletes coming through and this will mean that there will be competition for places on the national squad.

“I think it would be good for the divers to fight for places on the squad.”

Meanwhile, Italy’s Valerio Cleri coped with big waves to win the men’s marathon 25km open water event in Ostia in five hours and 26 minutes. Cleri just missed out on a medal over 10km on Wednesday. The women’s race was won by Germany’s Angela Maurer in five hours, 47 minutes.

“My goal in Rome was a medal, so I’m delighted with gold,” said Mauer, who lost her googles midway through the race," said Maurer.

"I made use of all my experience.  With waves it is important to swim in the lead."