By Gary Anderson

March 14 - Ruolin Chen and Huixia Liu were all smiles in Beijing after winning one of three golds for China ©AFP/Getty ImagesAs was widely anticipated the first day of the International Swimming Federation (FINA) Diving World Series in Beijing saw home athletes dominating the medal positions as three of the four titles on offer went the way of China.

The irrepressible Ruolin Chen demonstrated her prowess once again as she and her World Championship winning partner Huixia Liu scored an impressive 347.52 points to take the 10 metre synchro platform competition to the delight of the home crowd inside the Water Cube on the Olympic Park. 

Four-time Olympic and five-time world champion Chen came into the meeting nursing an injured left arm but was still in good enough shape to partner Liu to the win, with the pair finishing ahead of Canada's Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion and Malaysia's Mun Yee Leong and Pandelela Rinong Pamg.

"I tumbled down on the training shuttle bus the day before yesterday," said Chen afterwards, explaining how she picked up her injury.

"My left arm is swollen but I am really excited to compete and forget about my injury."

It was another Chinese and Canadian top two in the women's 3m springboard as Minxia Wu and Tingmao Shi demonstrated why they took World Championship gold in Barcelona last year by besting Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware with Mexico's Aranixa Chavez and Laura Sanchez in third.

Beijing 2008 Olympic champion Lin Yue and London 2012 champion Cao Yuan combined in the men's platform event to overcome reigning world champions Patrick Hausding and Sascha Klein of Germany while British duo Daniel Goodfellow and Mattew Lee took the bronze.

Evgeny Kuznetsov and Ilya Zakharov broke the Chinese stranglehold on gold by taking the 3m springboard synchro title ©Getty Images Evgeny Kuznetsov and Ilya Zakharov broke the Chinese stranglehold on gold by taking the 3m springboard synchro title ©Getty Images



Russian Olympic silver medallists Evgeniy Kuznetsov and Ilya Zakharov provided the first away win of the three-day meeting in Beijing as they registered a score of 455.28 to take the men's 3m springboard synchro crown.

"I'm glad that we won the gold though we dropped to seventh after the second round," said Zakharov.

"We adjusted well and finally got the victory."

Cao and Lin could not add to their 10m crown and had to settle for second place ahead of Ukrainian pair Oleksandr Gorshkovozov and Illya Kvasha.

The action in the Water Cube continues tomorrow with the men's and women's individual 3m springboard competitions.

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