August 25, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 22, 1429

BEIJING, Aug 24: China could have trouble replacing their current golden generation of Olympic diving champions, a former national coach who spotted and nurtured some of its greatest talents has said.

China won seven of the eight diving golds on offer at the Water Cube, with Australia’s Matthew Mitcham securing the men’s 10 metres platform gold after a botched final dive by Zhou Luxin on Saturday prevented a Chinese clean sweep.

The host country’s dominance, however, was in danger because too few promising young divers are coming through the training pipeline, while current national team members are not improving fast enough, said Yu Fen.

Yu coached the country’s two most successful female Olympic divers Fu Mingxia and Guo Jingjing, but left the national team in 1997 and now teaches young amateurs at a University in Beijing.

“Now we are short of reserves,” she said after watching Zhou, a diver she scouted and then trained for years, throw gold away by fumbling the last dive of the Games.

“So far the elite ones are not really standing out, the sport is not popular enough, and the production of backup talents is far from adequate,” she added.

While China won almost all the medals, the narrow victory margins in Beijing showed that rivals are challenging China’s ability to churn out nearly flawless divers.

Teen medallist Chen Ruolin took her gold only with a superb last dive while Guo won by less than 17 points.

“We have no more absolute advantage in either degree of difficulty or consistency of execution,” Yu said.

Sports schools scattered throughout the country are keen to produce a medal winner, and plenty of parents dream sports could offer their children a route out of obscurity or poverty.

But Yu said there is a shortage of really good divers.

“Now we’ve only got a few elite divers. We must have more. I believe there are plenty of them in China but we have to find them out and raise them up in the next four years,” she said.

She cited the men’s platform event as an example, with no one on the heels of the current trio — Zhou, and synchronised gold medallists Huo Liang and Lin Yue, all former students.

Yu believed that China could keep its dominance in the synchronized events because Chinese divers train regularly with their chosen partner, while foreign rivals are often constrained by funding shortages or a different sports management system.

“But as for the individual events, we are losing our leading position,” she added.

“We are still seemingly so strong with the seven golds, and I am also happy with them. But we should also see the potential of crisis.”—Reuters