Diving at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games:

The hometown Chinese were favored, as they sent out the 2007 World Champion, Qin Kai, and the 2008 World Cup champion, He Chong. He, and we do mean He, dominated the event, leading the qualifying, the semi-finals, and the final round, winning the gold medal by over 36 points. Second went to Canada’s Alexandre Despatie, who had also won silver in Athens, and had been the 2005 World Champion in the event. Qin won bronze, edging out the perpetual contender Dmitry Sautin of Russia. While the United States had once had the world’s best divers, this was the third consecutive Olympics at which no American made the podium. China was now the top diving nation, winning this event for the fourth straight Games.