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Fu enters pool of legends with fourth Olympic gold
= = SYDNEY, Sept 28 (AFP) - Fu Mingxia of China won a mighty battle to retain her Olympic 3m springboard title here Thursday and in the process achieved a record-equalling fourth career Olympic diving gold medal. The win puts Fu, whose name means "beautiful sunrise", among the league of diving legends as she becomes the first woman to win gold in three consecutive Olympics and equals Americans Greg Louganis and Pat McCormick's tally of four each. "Eight years is a long time. I feel I have grown up," said Fu, the youngest ever world champion in 1991 aged 12, who won her first Olympic gold in the platform in Barcelona, and achieved the springboard and platform double in Atlanta. Burnt out as an 18-year-old after the 1996 Games, she retired and went to university in Beijing to study economic management only returning to international competition at the 1999 World University Games in Palma. "When I was on the podium receiving the medal I felt I had come a long way," said the 22-year-old. Fu, who had been trailing her teenage team-mate Guo Jingjing going into Thursday's final, and fell behind during the first three dives, posted the highest score of the night on her fourth dive a reverse two and a half turn somersault pike and went on to snatch victory in dramatic fashion on the final dive. "As a woman nobody has achieved four gold medals so I made a promise to myself that I would persevere," said Fu. The final was, in effect, a duel between the two Chinese who were in a league of their own. Despite dropping to ninth on her second forward three and a half turn somersault, Fu came back to nail three top dives in a row, with all depending on the final reverse one and a half turn somersault two and a half turn twist. Fu's experience paid off and she was able to count on this to see off the challenge from Olympic novice Guo to pull out a 77.43 point score on her final dive, nearly 10 more than Guo. She achieved a total of 609.42 points, with Guo getting silver on 597.81, and third place going to European silver-medallist Doerte Lindner of Germany on 574.35. World champion Yulia Pakhalina of Russia finished fourth on 570.42. Guo, who has edged out Fu in two events this year, was in awe of her calm. "Fu is an experienced athlete and she always performs well. We train together and she's always consistent. I can learn from her," said Guo. While Lindner, 26, said that she learnt to dive by watching Fu. "I saw her diving in video tapes. I was studying her from the tapes and kept watching her and said I can do that and actually learnt a new dive from her." But despite her legendary status Fu says she does not see herself as different from her team-mates and after coming out of retirement insisted that she qualify like any other competitor, not as the defending champion. "Maybe I have achieved a lot of medals, but I don't see myself as a special diver. I regard myself as equal to my other team-mates. I started from the bottom and moved up." Fu had come to these Games aiming for an all-time record five diving golds. But the dream was shattered when she and Guo had to settle for silver behind Russia's European champions Vera Ilina and Pakhalina in Saturday's inaugural synchronised diving 3m springboard final. But she said that she never even thought of comparing herself to legends such as Louganis and McCormick. "It would be meaningless. I only wanted to do the best for myself," she said after winning China's third diving gold Thursday and fourth in these Games. Xiong Ni, who won the men's indiviudal springboard, won the synchronised springboard with Xiao Hailiang, while Li Na and Sang Xue won the women's synchronised platform. As for the future Fu said she was still undecided. "I never thought about the future until tonight because I was concentrating on training, but I think I will go back to university. I feel I must respect myself and cherish what I have done.
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