Growing pains for tiny teenage champion

By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) - Diving champion Chen Ruolin fears the tiny teenage body she has tuned to medal-winning perfection may be about to betray her.

Nerves of steel and an almost flawless last dive edged her on top of the podium for the 10-metres platform, an event that has eluded the host nation, diving's dominant powerhouse, for two Olympics.

That challenge over, the new opponent for one of the Games' youngest medallists is puberty.

"Every girl's body will get a little fatter when she gets to adolescence," 15-year-old Chen said after the last-gasp victory.

"I want to control my weight, for the sake of my figure," she added, who at just 30 kilos weighs less than China's gymnasts.

A weedy child, she was taken to diving classes to bulk up.

Now, even though she is only 1.36 metres (4 feet 6 inches) tall, her coaches fear she has the opposite problem, with the official China Daily reporting in February she was skipping meals to control her weight.

The ranks of would-be champions are so thick in China that the risk of losing out if your body changes is real.

Chen also won synchronised gold with Wang Xin in Beijing on August12, but only after she swapped partners before the Games, because the girl she had trained with "grew too quickly" and lost her technique.

She burst into delighted tears after taking gold, but her gruelling training regime means celebrations will not last long.

Asked what she wants to do now, Chen said "sleep", but her eyes are back on the pool, with no plans to wallow in glory.

"Although I got the medal, if I still think about it when I'm training I will not make any progress, I'll just be stuck at my current level," she told a news conference.

"For the last dive, when I was standing on the platform, I was nervous....I still have to train harder."

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury)