AFP, Kazan :
Tania Cagnotto won Italy’s first diving gold medal for 40 years on Tuesday in the women’s 1m springboard final to break China’s winning streak at the world championships in Kazan.
Cagnotto, the reigning European champion, struck gold with 310.85pts over the five rounds as Chinese pair Shi Tingmao, who won silver, and bronze medallist He Zi, the former world champion, had to settle for podium places.
Between them, Shi and He had won three of the last four world titles in this event and Cagnotto’s win ended a streak of 14 world gold medals for China in women’s diving events.
The previous world championship event in which China did not win gold was also the women’s 1m springboard, back in 2009.
Chinese divers had previously been enjoying a purple patch at Kazan’s Aquatics Palace by winning five of the five previous events in a bid to emulate their 2011 clean sweep of all ten diving medals when the world championships were held in Shanghai.
