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Xiong and Xiao win men's synchronised springboard gold
SYDNEY, Sept 28 (AFP) - Olympic springboard champion Xiong Ni won his second gold medal of the Sydney Games when he and Chinese partner Xiao Hailiang took the men's synchronised springboard title here Thursday. The win, following hot on the heels of the stunning victory of team-mates Li Na and Sang Xue in the women's synchronised platform event puts the Chinese back in the driver's seat after a poor opening run in these Games. The Chinese scored a combined total of 365.58 points after five dives, leading from the first round, to build up a 35.61 point gap on second-placed Russians Dmitri Sautin and Alexandre Dobroskok. Dobroskok and triple medal winner Sautine -- he also won gold in the synchro platform with Igor Loukashin and bronze in the springboard -- scored 329.97 points. Australian's Dean Pullar and Robert Newbury took the bronze with 322.86, following team-mates Rebecca Gilmore and Loudy Tourky who earlier won Australia's first Olympic diving medal in 76 years, a bronze in the women's synchronized 10m platform event. Xiong, 26, who retired after winning springboard gold in Atlanta, and only returned to the Chinese team in 1998, teamed up with 1996 Olympic platform bronze medallist Xiao, 23, a year ago and were favourites after winning the synchonised springboard event at the World Cup in Sydney last January. Xiong is just the second male diver ever to win medals at four Olympics, tying Italy's Klaus Dibiasi, from 1964-76, and joins America's Greg Louganis as the only men to defend springboard titles, which the American did in 1984 and 1988. He won silver at the 1988 Olympics and bronze in 1992, both on platform, and finally struck gold in 1996 in Atlanta in the springboard.
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