A change of partner just before the world swimming championships paid off for China’s Lian Junjie and Ren Qian, who won mixed 10 metre synchronised diving gold on Saturday.
The duo had been working together for only a month before Budapest, but dominated the five dive programme, the first diving event of the championships.
Ending with 352.98 points, the pair won China’s first gold of the meet.
“The time was rather short, but we worked hard every single day, we trained all day to refine our dives,” said the 16-year-old Lian.
“We don´t yet know if we stay together for the long run, time will tell,” he added.
British pair Lois Toulson and Matthew Lee clinched second place with 323.28 points.
“There were some little mistakes at the first two rounds, they could have been better, but China was far ahead,” said Lee.
“They have very good divers. Maybe on one day we will be able to catch them, in diving you never know what happens,” he said.
China’s success repeated their win two years ago at the world championships in Kazan, Russia, the first ever staging of the discipline.
Russia’s Viktor Minibaev and Yulia Timoshinina, and Canada’s Nathan Zsombor-Murray and Meaghan Benfeito, came fourth and fifth.
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