19-year-old Zhang Jiaqi and 14-year-old Wang Feilong embark on the first step towards Los Angeles, with the "Dream Team" winning the opening red. Zhang Jiaqi | Project | Wang Feilong
The mixed 10 meter platform event of non Olympic events has produced the first gold medal in the diving event of this year's Fukuoka Swimming World Championships. The combination of 19-year-old Olympic champion Zhang Jiaqi and 14-year-old young player Wang Feilong from the Chinese team lived up to expectations, winning the first gold medal for the Dream Team at this World Championships with a total score of 339.54 points.
In the previous Budapest World Championships, the Chinese diving team won all 13 gold medals, leading the diving medal table with a total of 17 medals of 13 gold, 2 silver, and 2 bronze, creating the best record at the World Championships. The team's goal for this competition is not only to qualify for the Paris Olympics as soon as possible, but also to win 13 gold medals. Zhang Jiaqi and Wang Feilong bear the heavy responsibility of winning the start.
Zhang Jiaqi and Wang Feilong are a brand new combination, but their movement styles and figures are quite similar. Zhang Jiaqi is the gold medalist in the women's synchronized 10 meter platform at the Tokyo Olympics, with extensive experience in international competitions. After the Tokyo Olympics, she maintained a good competitive state. Wang Feilong is a rising star in national competitions in recent years and a reserve talent for the Los Angeles Olympics. The Fukuoka World Championships will be a valuable opportunity for him to step onto the international competition stage.
Before the World Championships, the team conducted two internal tests, and Zhang Jiaqi and Wang Feilong accumulated a tacit understanding through a period of adaptation and internal testing.
In the women's synchronized 10 meter platform diving final at the Tokyo Olympics, Chinese athletes Chen Yuxi and Zhang Jiaqi won the championship.
![19-year-old Zhang Jiaqi and 14-year-old Wang Feilong embark on the first step towards Los Angeles, with the "Dream Team" winning the opening red. Zhang Jiaqi | Project | Wang Feilong](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/3cffd8f2dc328383122b4cc4499aac21.jpg)
After the Tokyo Olympics, due to being at a disadvantage in competition with Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi, Zhang Jiaqi had little hope of competing for admission to the Paris Olympics. Because in the singles event, Quan Hongchan was once established as an absolute core player and also the biggest favorite to win the championship at the Paris Olympics. But Chen Yuxi's performance is very stable. With hard training, he has now surpassed Quan Hongchan in single player competition and has defeated Quan Hongchan multiple times in consecutive competitions. In the doubles event, the Olympic champion duo of Zhang Jiaqi and Chen Yuxi was split up, and Quan Hongchan replaced Zhang Jiaqi's position, forming a new pair of doubles with Chen Yuxi.
After this year's World Championships, Zhangjiaqi will soon have another chance to compete in the World Championships, which is the Chengdu Universiade. Shortly after the Tokyo Olympics, Zhang Jiaqi was admitted to China Sports University and became a college student. And in this World University Games, Zhang Jiaqi will represent the Chinese team as a university student in the competition. As long as the performance is stable, the championship will basically belong to the Zhang family.
This time, Zhang Jiaqi successfully won the first gold medal for the Chinese diving team and completed the task of "old leading new". He evaluated his performance and his partner's performance in this way: "The performance was decent, but still far from the high standard requirements. For our team, there is still a promising future and great room for improvement."