Quan Hongchan is already an Olympic gold medalist at just 14 years old.
Young champ: Hongchan, China’s youngest athlete at the Tokyo Games, performed two dives that the judges scored unanimously as 10 in the women’s 10-meter (32.8 feet) platform diving to win her gold medal on Thursday, ESPN reported. She also received a third 10 after two judges’ scores were discounted.
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Quan finished with a dominating score of 466.20, while her Chinese teammate Chen Yuxi won the silver medal with 425.40 points.
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Quan is now the second-youngest woman to win gold in this event.
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Fu Mingxia, also representing China, took the event’s top spot at age 13 in the 1992 Barcelona Games.
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With Chen winning gold at a separate diving event last week, China has now claimed gold in all women’s diving events at four successive Olympic Games since Beijing 2008.
Slight nervousness: After her nearly flawless performance, the teen diving star later admitted that she was “a little nervous, but not very, just a little bit,” according to CNN.
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Quan, who has been called a “diving prodigy,” said she does not think the label fits her.
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“I don’t think I’m a prodigy,” she was quoted as saying. “I’m not very bright. I don’t do well in my studies. You ask me all these questions, and there’s only a blank in my mind.”
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In celebrating her Olympic gold, Quan said she wants to “eat a lot of delicious things tonight! I feel like eating ‘latiao’ (a spicy Chinese snack) the most.”
Featured Image via BeIN Sports Asia
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