Huo takes China to brink of diving title sweep

By Derek Parr

BEIJING (Reuters) - China closed towards the first sweep of Olympic diving titles in more than half a century when Huo Liang led the way into the men's platform final on Saturday.

China, who has won all seven other Beijing diving finals, set itself up as a strong favorite to make it eight through Huo or Friday's evening's preliminary round leader Zhou Luxin.

Australia's Matthew Mitcham followed up Friday's second place in the preliminary round by finishing second in the semi-final, which reduced the field from 18 to 12.

Britain's 14-year-old Tom Daley made it through to the final in eighth but compatriot Peter Waterfield, 2004 Olympic synchronized platform silver medalist, blew his penultimate dive and finished 13th.

Germany's Sascha Klein, who became World Cup champion in Beijing's Water Cube this year, also failed to make the final.

"I just didn't get into it. I was giving it my best. I was trying. It was just one of those days," Klein said after a nightmare series left him nearly 170 points behind the leader.

Huo, gold medalist with Lin Yue in the synchronized platform last week, performed superbly after trailing eighth in the preliminaries.

Huo earned four perfect 10s -- three for his inward 2-½ somersaults in the second round -- to amass 549.95 points from his six semi-final dives.

"I'm in better form today. I wasn't relaxed enough in the preliminary," Huo said.

Mitcham concluded his consistent program with a back 2-½

somersaults with 2-½ twists which earned the highest score of the session of 106.40 and hoisted him to an overall 532.20.

"I think one bad dive from anyone and they're out of the competition, that's the high standard of the competition. It's anybody's," Mitcham said.

Zhou, who had briefly taken the lead from Huo in the fourth round, dropped from second to third with a disappointing last dive for an aggregate 526.20.

Russian world champion Gleb Galperin, third in the preliminaries, qualified fourth on 508.95.

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury)