(Beijing, February 24) The "Good Luck Beijing" 2008 16th FINA Diving World Cup entered its sixth and last day. In the women's synchronized 3m springboard preliminaries held this afternoon, Chinese duo Wu Minxia/Guo Jingjing finished first as expected with a five-round total of 345.60pts, followed by the U.S. pair Ariel Rittenhouse/Kelci Bryant (316.20) and Laura Sanchez/Paola Espinosa of Mexico (313.80).

In the first two rounds where all divers chose dives of an equal coefficient of difficulty of 2.0, Wu/Guo ranked first with 109.80, while three pairs from the USA, Ukraine and Italy respectively shared the second place with the identical score of 102.00.

In the third round from which divers could perform dives without limit, Wu/Guo extended their lead with 78.30 in 405B (inward 2½ somersaults piked, DD 3.0), followed by Americans Rittenhouse/Bryant by a margin of 15.90, and Italians Noemi Batki/Francesca Dallape.

For their fourth dive, Wu/Guo collected 80.10 with a near-perfect 305B (reverse 2½ somersaults piked, DD 3.0) to further extend their lead over the second placers Rittenhouse/Bryant.

In the fifth and last round, Wu/Guo secured their first place with a 205B (2½ somersaults piked, DD 3.0), which earned them 77.40. Rittenhouse/Bryant stood second by a margin of 29.40. Laura Sanchez/Paola Espinosa of Mexico moved up to the third place with their last, impressive dive of 405B which brought them 78.30.

After the preliminaries, 12 pairs from the USA, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, Ukraine, UK, Sweden, Malaysia and host China made the finals to be held at 8:45 p.m. this evening. The finals will be another five-round competition with the first two rounds under an average DD of 2.0 and the other three without limit.