MONTREAL, July 19: Blythe Hartley, energized by adoring Canadian fans, grabbed gold for the hosts of the 11th World Swimming Championships on Monday with a victory in the women’s 1m springboard diving.

“It was really exciting. The crowd was amazing,” said Hartley, who triumphed over China’s Wu Min Xia and Germany’s Heike Fischer at the packed diving pool at the aquatic centre on Ile Sainte-Helene.

“I had a great time out there. It was very, very special,” added the 23-year-old, who added a second 1m springboard world title to her resume after her victory in Fukuoa in 2001.

Hartley, who earned bronze in the event at the 2003 worlds in Barcelona, led every step of the way - after the preliminaries and semi-finals and after every round of the five-dive final.

All three of the medallists performed the same five final dives in the same order, so Hartley - diving last - knew exactly what she was up against.

She and Fischer were even atop the leaderboard after the first dive of the final, then Hartley inexorably pulled away.

Fischer remained in second until the penultimate dive, when Wu fought her way up to the silver medal position with her reverse one-and-a-half in the pike position.

Heading into the final round, in which all three performed a reverse twisting one-and-a-half, Hartley led by nearly 20 points, lifting the title with a total of 325.65.

Wu finished with 299.70 points, with Fischer totalling 299.46.

Hartley said she was glad to be back on the 1m springboard, after focusing on other events in 2004 because the 1m isn’t on the Olympic programme.

“The fact that I’ve been able to perfect the dives is great,” said Hartley, who won a 3m platform synchronized bronze with Emilie Heymans at the Athens Games.

Heymans and fellow Montreal-based diver Alexandre Despatie were tipped as most likely to emerge as the darlings of these championships.

But Hartley, who comes from Vancouver, said she thought her performance would provide a boost to the entire Canadian team, offering proof that

the mighty Chinese divers are not unbeatable.

China started their charge with two synchronized diving golds on Sunday, and will still prove tough to overcome.

After competition opened on Sunday with medals in four events, all the attention was on the 1m springboard as the only medal event on the second day of the 15-day aquatic festival.

The same will hold true on Tuesday, when China’s 3m springboard Olympic champion Peng Bo of China will try again to relegate Despatie to silver, as he did in Athens.

In other action Monday, preliminaries got underway in men’s water polo, and team competition opened in synchronized swimming.

Defending world and Olympic champions Hungary opened their water polo campaign with a 14-4 victory over Romania.

Serbia-Montenegro, who lost an 8-7 heartbreaker to Hungary in the Olympic final in Athens, launched their bid for retribution with a 21-1 rout of Cuba.

Russia, which swept the synchronized swimming gold medals at the Athens Games, wasted no time in taking charge in the team event.

They led the way into the finals after posting the top combined score in preliminary technical and free routines, ahead of Spain and Athens silver medallists Japan.—Agencies