Bill Beacon

MONTREAL (CP) - There will be no easy diving medals for Canadian stars Alexandre Despatie and Emilie Heymans at the FINA world aquatic championships. Despatie is up against a pair of formidable Chinese rivals - Bo Peng, the man who beat him for the gold medal at the Olympics in Athens last summer, and 18-year-old He Chong, the sport's rising star.

Chong's ability to pull off complex, high-scoring dives has impressed Mitch Geller, technical director of the Canadian team.

"He could be the next guy to really raise the bar in terms of difficulty (of dives) on the springboard," Geller said Friday of Chong.

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone stronger. But here, he'll have to compete and I don't know if he can compete better than Alex."

Despatie, 20, from Laval, Que., is defending world champion on the 10-metre platform, but a back injury prevented him from training for his best event. He will compete only in the one-metre and three-metre springboard events.

He had a bad day and finished fourth off the tower in Athens but picked up silver on the three-metre board, losing to Peng. The one-metre is not an Olympic event.

"I don't see any of these guys as a rival," said Despatie. "We're all friendly.

"It's an individual sport. They do their best and I'll do mine and let the best win."

Chong is also prevented from entering the 10-metre event due to a wrist injury.

Heymans won the 10-metre tower event in 2003 and also dropped to fourth at the Olympics, where Chantelle Newberry of Australia won gold. The two are expected to go head-to-head in Montreal with another Aussie, Israeli-born Loudy Tourky, also in the picture.

"This is the best I've ever seen Emilie in terms of the whole package," added Geller.

Newberry, the first Aussie to win an Olympic gold medal in diving, is married to a medal contender in the men's tower event, Robert Newberry.

Without Despatie and Australia's Mathew Helm, who retired after winning the Olympic 10-metre silver medal, the powerhouse Chinese are expected to move into the top spots. The defending Olympic champ is Jia Hu.

Geller said a diver to watch in that event is Jose Guerra Oliva of Cuba, who won at the World Cup finals in Mexico in June.

"It's opened up for him a bit this year," said Geller. "It's time for him to put one together."

The women's three-metre board is the domain of Jingjing Guo of China, the defending world and Olympic champ, and her toughest competition should come from compatriot Minxia Wu, the Olympic silver medallist.

Potential spoilers include veteran Yulia Pakhalina of Russia and Blythe Hartley of Vancouver, who toned down training this year to concentrate on her studies at the University of Southern California.

Guo and Wu also won the three-metre synchonized diving event in Athens and are the favourites again in Montreal.

Hartley won gold on the one-metre board at the 2001 worlds and picked up bronze in 2003, when Irina Lashko of Australia was champion. Chinese divers Xiang Xu and Kenan Wang took the top two one-metre men's spots in 2003.

Diving competition opens Sunday with the men's three-metre and women's 10-metre synchronized events.

The star of men's synchro is the most decorated diver of all time, Dmitri Sautin of Russia, who has amassed seven Olympic and eight world championship medals in his career.

Sautin, 33, is defending world champion with partner Alexander Dobrosak, although they fell to seventh at the 2004 Olympics, where Nikolas Siranidis and Thomas Bimis of host Greece won.

Hartley and Heymans, who won Olympic bronze in the 10-metre synchro event last year, did not enter that competition this time around because they were unable to train together.

Peter Waterfield and Leon Taylor of Britain, silver medallists in Athens, are a pair to watch in the men's 10-metre synchro.

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