Australia's Shixin Li's Olympics has come to a premature end with Chinese divers in a league of their own in the men's 3m springboard competition on Monday.
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Wang Zongyuan and Xie Siyi were runaway leaders after the preliminary round at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
After a strong first dive which saw Li sit 12th, his next two efforts saw him drop down to 27th - outside the 22-diver cut off to progress through to the semi-finals.
He steadied on his fourth attempt but failed to boost his score over six entries to advance.
A two-time world champion in the 1m springboard - an event not contested at the Olympic games - and a former star of China's diving team, Li moved to Australia in 2017 as a diving coach and became naturalised.
He decided to try and qualify for the Games and, at 33, was Australia's oldest Olympic diving debutant.
Despite his credentials, he had an unhappy outing.
Wang, 19, topped the leaderboard however his older teammate Xie delivered the dive of the day with his final round forward four-and-a-half somersaults the only dive to score into the magical triple figures with 100.70
China has won gold in the event in five of the past six Olympics.
Mexico's Rommel Pacheco Marrufo qualified in third, some 52.05 points behind Wang, followed by Brit James Heatly.
Australian Associated Press
