The Chinese dream team swept all of the three gold medals in the first day competition of the fifth leg of FINA Diving Grand Prix in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province on Friday.

In the first final of the day, the Chinese armada sent two teenage pairs Lin Yue/Huo Liang and Zhang Chen/Ying Hong to compete with other male divers in the tower. Finally, Lin Yue/Huo Liang grabbed the gold with 450.72 points.

"We just paired up for a few weeks, but our synchronization was quite well this time," Lin said at the news conference.

Lin Yue combined Zhang Chen to take a silver medal at the first leg of this year's FINA Grand Prix in Australia and a gold at the second leg in Germany. When the two competed in Zhuhai both with newly-assigned partners, they kept in form in front of the home crowd.

Lin Yue/Huo Liang chose a backward two-and-a-half somersault and two-and-a-half twist pike as their final dive and did it well with 92.34 points. Although world champions Dmitry Dobroskok and Gleb Galperin finished their show with the same dive and earned 93.48 from the dive of 3.8 degree of difficulty, the Russian pair only managed to snatch the silver at 444.96 points.

Zhang Chen/Ying Hong earned a total score of 429.03 but had to stay in the third place as only one pair of the home team could be awarded points in the Grand Prix rankings. Ri Jong Nam/Kim Chon Man from DPR Korea took the bronze at 375.27 points.

About one hour later, Wang Feng/He Chong took the second gold for China by winning men's 3-meter springboard event at 440.28 points.

Veteran Wang and rising star He notched up the gold at 2005 World Aquatic Championships in Montreal but had not compete together until the event in Zhuhai. "We felt a little bit unfamiliar with each other since we had not practiced together for more than six months," said Wang, "but we are satisfied with the result today."

Xu Xiang and Luo Yutong trailed their teammates Wang and He at 432.15 points, but had to give the silver to Alexander Dobroskok/ Sergey Nazin from Russia, whose total score was 393.09 points. American pair Troy Dumais/Mitchell Richeson ranked third at 390.09 points.

Besides, Jiang Lishuang and Chen Ruolin made a one-two finish for China in women's 10-meter platform at 406.70 and 390.40 points respectively. Risa Asada from Japan got the bronze at 333.95 points.

(Xinhua News Agency April 22, 2006)