Make it five: Guo wins her fifth straight world title on springboard

Guo dives for another world title

ROME — Guo Jingjing has won five straight world titles on the women’s 3-meter springboard.

That enough?

Hardly.

China’s 27-year-old star added to her medal haul Tuesday, blowing away the field with another dynamic springboard performance. She finished with 388.20 points, the only real competition who would finish second.

Now, it’s on to the 2011 worlds in Shanghai, followed by the London Olympics.

“Yes, I want to take part in the next world championships. I want to take part in the next Olympics,” Guo said through a translator. “I want to go on training and always improve.”

Hard to get much better. Guo had the highest-scoring dive in four of the five rounds, earning remarkably consistent scores that ranged from 8.0 to 9.0. Her only stumble — if one could call it that — came on her fourth attempt when she received a strings of 7.5s and a single 8 for a forward 2½ somersault with a twist.

“I’m truly satisfied with my performance,” said Guo, the oldest diver in the final. “There’s a lot of promising divers in China. Sometimes I ask myself when will they compete better than me.”

No worries for now.

“During the final, I was nervous before each dive as usual,” Guo said. “Compared to the past, though, I was able to control my nerves better.”

The silver went to Canada’s Emilie Heymans with 346.45 points. Italy’s Tania Cagnotto thrilled the home crowd by taking third with 341.25, the first medal for the hosts.

Americans Ariel Rittenhouse and Christina Loukas finished fifth and eighth.

Guo captured her first springboard world title in 2001, and she hasn’t lost since in the every-other-year competition. She also is a two-time Olympic champion in the event and has a staggering nine world titles overall, more than any other diver.

“I performed well. I’m quite satisfied,” she said. “However, there are still many things I could improve. You should get better every training session.”

Heymans’ greatest successes had been from the platform. She won a 10-meter gold at the 2003 Barcelona world championships, and all three of her Olympics medals — two silvers and a bronze — have come on the big tower.

“I am really surprised,” she said. “I worked really hard, but I haven’t been competing for a while so I didn’t know how my current conditioning compared to the other divers.”

Cagnotto just missed out on a medal in the opening event of the championships, finishing fourth in the 1-meter springboard. She made up for it with a third straight bronze at worlds in the 3-meter.

“Finally a medal!” she said through a translator. “I have been sick for three days.”

The home crowd spurred her on.

“I was very nervous, but it was awesome, an unforgettable emotion,” Cagnotto said. “Diving in front of all my friends was the best thing that could happen to me.”