Chinese diving "dream team", who made a clean sweep at the 2011 Shanghai worlds and won nine out of the 10 titles on offer at the 2013 Barcelona worlds, will find it's hard to duplicate the glory this time in Kazan.
Three new events are added in the Kazan worlds, which are the mixed three-meter springboard, mixed 10m platform, and team event. China has no advantage in those new events.
"The mixed events will be competitive," said Zhou Jihong, the team leader. "There will be no preliminaries, and you can't make any mistake. When pairing up with female divers, the male divers cannot use difficult dives, and actually our difficulty degree is not the highest."
China will also meet big challenges in the men's events, especially the individual events. Cao Yuan and He Chao will compete with Russian diving stars Ilya Zaharov and Evgeny Kuznetsov. Zakarov is the London Olympic champion of the event, while Kuznetsov has also beaten Chinese divers in many occasions.
The men's 10m platform has always been a weak point for China. China lost the title in both the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. And in the 2013 Barcelona worlds, the men's 10m platform synchro was the only gold medal China failed to win.
Defending champion Qiu Bo and world championships debutant Yang Jian will face strong rivals from Britain, Germany, Mexico, the United States, and the host Russia in the 10m platform, while Lin Yue and Chen Aisen will take part in the synchro event.
Compared with the men's events, the women's events are more optimistic. Shi Tingmao and defending champion He Zi will take part in the women's 3m springboard, while veteran Wu Minxia will pair up with Shi to compete in the synchro 3m springboard.
Two-time Olympic champion Chen Ruolin, who failed to qualify for the individual event, will take part in the synchro 10m platform with national champion Liu Huixia, while Si Yajie and 14-year-old Ren Qian will try to prove themselves in the 10m platform.
