First gold for Greeks as China hit rock bottom

Amid joyful scenes that were all the more intense given the doping case involving home athletes that has scarred the opening of these Olympics, Greece won its first gold and second medal of the Games here at the aquatics centre last night in the three-metre synchronised springboard diving final.

Amid joyful scenes that were all the more intense given the doping case involving home athletes that has scarred the opening of these Olympics, Greece won its first gold and second medal of the Games here at the aquatics centre last night in the three-metre synchronised springboard diving final.

Appropriately, given the parentage of her father, Princess Anne presented Nikolaos Sirandis and Thomas Bimis with the medals on an evening which featured repeated renditions of the music from Zorba The Greek after a catastrophic error in their final dive by the Chinese pair who were leading the competition. The world silver medallists scored nothing at all after Wang Kenan landed bottom-first after losing his concentration.

Britain's pair of Tony Ally and Mark Shipman, who failed to emulate Saturday's medal-winning performance by Leon Taylor and Peter Waterfield in the Synchronised 10m Platform as they came fifth, believed the Chinese were put off early in the fourth round when a young man - dressed in a tutu and with "Greece's No 1 diver" written on his chest - broke through security to jump off an adjacent springboard.

Shipman said: "You don't see that very often, and I think some people were completely put off. I think it was more the Chinese guy."

Ally was happy with a score of 334.98, a personal best, but the pair stood in last place after three of the five dives.