China's Wu Minxia ended her illustrative Olympic career with a gold medal. Interestingly, she began her Olympic career at 2004 Athens Games by winning a gold medal.
On last Sunday,Wu and her teammate, Shi Tingmao totaled 345.60 points to win the women's 3-meter synchronized title in the first diving event of thisOlympic. They were in a lead throughout the five-round competition and won by a31.77 points margin.Wu said: "We have a very high standard," the Associated Press reported.
This was her fourth consecutive gold medal in 3-meter synchro.With this win, she became the first woman to win four gold medals in the same event at the Olympics. She has also won golds in 2004, 2008 and 2012, where she had three different partners.
30-year-old, Wu also created history by becoming the first diver to win five career golds. She had also won the 3-meter individual event atLondon Games four years ago but she won't be defending that title in Rio."When I first got into diving, I thought it was a very exciting sport.My personality, I always want to win." Wu said.
She had also won a silver at the 2004 Athens Games and bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games in individual 3-meter diving event.
Wu also happens to be the oldest female diver to win most golds in the Olympic diving events ,surpassing Guo JingJing's tally of six golds. JingJing had also won a gold in diving at the age of 30, NBC news reported.
Shi and Wu repeatedly hit the scores of 9.0 and above, a total of 81points on their final dive -- a backward two-and-a-half-somersault pike.After which the duo emerged from of the water and embraced each other knowing that they had accomplished the task and that the gold was secure now. This was when five other teams were still to dive.
Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape of Italy won silver at 313.83.While Australia's Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith earned the bronze with their effort of 299.19, edging past Canadian team by less than a point.