He, Wang reaffirm China's 3m springboard dominance

He Zi claimed her second title of the FINA world championships and kept up China's dominance at the diving pool with an easy win in the women's 3-meter springboard in Barcelona.

She led after every round on the way to a total score of 383.40 points. The real drama was for the other spots on the podium. China's Wang Han held on for the silver with 356.25, while Canada's Pamela Ware pulled out the bronze with 350.25.

China has won eight of nine events at the scenic Montjuic pool overlooking the city.

The final event of the traditional diving competition is the men's 10-meter platform today. Olympic gold medalist David Boudia will try to prevent an American shutout and showed he hasn't lost his London form, leading after the semifinals.

Boudia opening dive yesterday received one perfect 10 and nothing lower than a 9.0 from the judges. He led through all six rounds, finishing with 534.40 points.

China's Qiu Bo, the silver medalist behind Boudia at the London Olympics, led after the morning preliminaries. He only finished sixth in the semifinals after a poor first dive, though still good enough to advance.

Mexico's Ivan Garcia was second, followed by Germany's Sascha Klein. Olympic bronze medalist Thomas Daley was seventh despite a triceps injury that required treatment.

Elsewhere, Germany's Thomas Lurz won another gold medal at the championships yesterday, touching first in the grueling 25-kilometer open water.

The 33-year-old Lurz took his second gold of the championships and seventh career victory at the worlds. He won in 4 hours, 47.27 seconds, beating Belgium's Brian Ryckeman by 0.4 seconds. The bronze went to Russia's Evegenii Drattcev, who edged out American Alex Meyer for a spot on the podium by 0.1 seconds after nearly five hours in the waters of Barcelona's scenic harbor.

On the women's side, Italy's Martina Grimaldi claimed victory by an even closer margin - one-tenth of a second ahead of Angela Maurer, denying the Germans dual victories at the last two open water events of these championships.

Maurer thought she had won on her 38th birthday, the scoreboard initially showing she had touched first. She grabbed a chair, totally exhausted. There was nothing she could do when the official results flashed on the scoreboard, flipping the order of the top two. Grimaldi's time was 5:07:19.7. American Eva Fabian claimed the bronze.