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Last Updated: Monday, 16 August, 2004, 20:24 GMT 21:24 UK
Greeks secure first gold
Greece won their first medal of the Athens Games with a surprise win in an astonishing men's synchronised 3m springboard final.

The Olympic diving hall erupted into Greek song and dance for winning pair Nikolaos Siranidis and Thomas Bimis.

The duo came from last place after a spectator jumped in the pool, sparking mistakes by the Chinese and Americans.

German's Andreas Wels and Tobias Schellenberg took silver and Robert Newbery and Steven Barnett won bronze.

The British pair of Tony Ally and Mark Shipman finished fifth, but might have been in with a chance of a bronze medal had they scored higher with their early dives.

The Greeks' victory capped a bizarre final that came as welcome relief for a host nation still under the cloud of Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou's missed drug test.

"We hope that this will open the way for more medals," said Bimis of his unlikely gold.

The top-seeded Chinese pair of Bo Peng and Kenan Wang had been seemingly headed for a runaway victory when they entered the final round with a 12-point victory.

The spectator is led away
The spectator is led away
But a mystery spectator - dressed in traditional Greek knickerbockers with the name of an internet betting company scrawled on his bare back - jumped on to one of the boards not being used for competition and bombed into the pool.

Proceedings were delayed - and the Chinese then made a mess of their final jump, receiving no points when one of them hit the water on his back.

Russian specialist Dmitry Sautin then took a knock on the springboard and a terrible landing by the second-placed American brothers Justin and Troy Dumais, ruled both out of contention leaving the path clear for the unheralded Greeks.

Siranidis and Bimis then nailed their final three and a half somersault tuck to score 83.64 points - and win by just 3.33 points.

The Americans eventually came in sixth and Sautin and teammate Alexander Dobroskok finished seventh.





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