SAINT-DENIS, France — Cao Yuan defended his title in the men’s 10-meter platform on Saturday and gave China an unprecedented sweep of the diving gold medals at the Paris Olympics.
The Big Red Machine won all eight golds at the Olympic Aquatics Centre, most of them with dominating victories.
That wasn’t the case in the final diving event of the Games. With teammate Yang Hao having an uncharacteristically poor day and Rikuto Tamai of Japan keeping the pressure on until a botched dive in the next-to-last round, the burden of completing the sweep fell entirely on Cao’s slender shoulders.
He was up the task.
The 29-year-old Cao essentially locked up the gold with big scores on his toughest dive of the competition, a forward 4 1/2 somersaults in the fifth of six rounds. He finished with 547.50 points to become the first male diver since Greg Louganis in 1988 to win sports-china-tokyo-f9e2e3a7f040eae37e68cb4b67ce6041″>a second straight gold off the big tower.
Cao now has four golds in his career. He also won the springboard at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and a 10-meter synchro gold at London in 2012.
Tamai bounced back on his final dive to lock up the silver with 507.65. The bronze went to Noah Williams of Britain at 497.35.
