Olympic Diving 2012: Women's 3-Meter Springboard Results and Analysis

China put on a diving-board clinic Sunday.

In a heated 2012 Olympic medal race with Team USA, the Chinese used the women’s three-meter springboard competition to take a comfortable lead.

They dominated the event at the 2011 World Championships. In London, their annihilation of the field was no different.

Wu Minxia took gold in Tokyo at Worlds and defended her title at this year's Games. He Zi did the same, except she claimed the silver medal in both events. It was clear that no other divers were on the legends’ level.

Here are the medal winners, final standings and analysis of Sunday's most notable performances.

Medal Winners

Medal	Name	Country	Score
Gold	Wu Minxia	China	414.00
Silver	He Zi	China	379.20
Bronze	Laura Sanchez Soto	Mexico	362.40

Final Standings

Place	Name	Country	Score
1	Wu Minxia	China	414.00
2	He Zi	China	379.20
3	Laura Sanchez Soto	Mexico	362.40
4	Tania Cagnotto	Italy	362.20
5	Sharleen Stratton	Australia	345.65
6	Jennifer Abel	Canada	343.00
7	Christina Loukas	USA	342.85
8	Cassidy Krug	USA	332.10
9	Olena Fedorova	Ukraine	317.80
10	Anna Lindberg	Sweden	316.80
11	Jaele Patrick	Australia	309.40
12	Emilie Heymans	Canada	295.20

Full results can also be found at NBCOlympics.com.

Best Performance: Wu Minxia

Wu is so dominant on the springboard that she dominated her previously dominant self.

At Worlds, she recorded a 380.85, which was a strong enough performance for first place. On Sunday, Wu blew that performance away with a 414.00.

Her 2011 score would’ve actually won her gold again if she had simply equaled her previous effort. Instead, she won in style. And after destroying the field in the semifinal and preliminaries by a similar margin, nothing less than obliteration was to be expected.

Next-Best Peformance: He Zi

While it’s got to be disappointing for He to lose to Wu over and over again, her performance on Sunday was extremely impressive as well. She didn’t challenge her teammate, but no one came close to challenging her either.

For example, bronze medalist Laura Sanchez Soto of Mexico was outperformed by He on every single event except the forward 2 1/2 somersault with one twist. And after getting a scare from Italy’s Tania Cagnotto in the semis—who finished second instead of He—the Chinese diver should be more than content with her championship effort.

Most Disappointing Performance: Jennifer Abel

Abel won bronze at the 2011 World Championships, but she came up empty-handed in London. She looked like a major contender in the preliminaries and semifinals, finishing fourth in each, but Abel just never turned it on to a medal-caliber level.

Just as her teammate Emilie Heymans recorded the lowest score of the final, Abel was also a notable disappointment. She’s far more talented than her sixth-place finish suggests.

A score of 55.50 on the reverse 2 1/2 somersault is what really cost her a shot at finding the podium.

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.

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