If East is East and West is West, as the Kipling couplet has it, rarely was the cultural divide more apparent than on the Olympic diving boards last week. It seemed as if no American vaulted into midair before indulging in a personal tale of tribulation vanquished. But the Chinese simply went out and won, capturing three gold medals and a bronze in the four events. Fu Mingxia, the world's preeminent aquatic acrobat, was pure poetry as she soared and somersaulted her way to two gold medals, but she was also political prestige incarnate. And Xiong Ni, the diminutive daredevil, became the first Chinese man to win on the Olympic springboard, though he was as much an icon of state strategy as an individual star.

China picks its stars scientifically, with diving scouts scouring the country for children with the proper physique and flexibility. Candidates are shipped off to state sports schools. Fu, a factory worker's daughter, was nine when she was sent to Beijing, more than 1,056 km from her home in Hubei province. And there, divers train harder than any others in the world. "We don't have time for other activities," said Fu, explaining that she works out seven hours a day, six days a week. Last Wednesday, at age 18, she became one of only seven athletes--male or female--to win both platform and springboard in a single Olympics. "I feel very relieved," she confessed. "China will be proud of my progress."

Dazzling though the Chinese divers are--Fu won her first world championships at 12 and her first Olympic gold in Barcelona at 13, and Xiong, 22, has won medals in three consecutive Olympics--they evoke admiration but little envy from Americans, who once dominated the sport. "The Chinese do this all day," says Mark Lenzi, who won a gold in Barcelona and a bronze last week. "We have lives to live, with jobs and family. Here it is a sport: the government does not take care of us." Though no advocate of China's "factory-type system" that churns out champions in a Darwinian selection process, U.S. Olympic coach Ron O'Brien sees some valuable lessons. "The first three years the Chinese work on nothing but fundamentals of movement, with lots of dry-land repetition, and only then do the kids start to dive," he said. "In the U.S. our athletes attempt difficult dives before they are ready."

Performance-enhancing drugs have been an issue for China in track and field and swimming--19 Chinese swimmers have tested positive in the past six years--but they are less of a concern in diving. Steroids or other medication could be used to help Chinese divers recover from their punishing routines--repeated plunges from 10-m platforms are particularly brutal--but no Chinese diver has ever tested positive for drugs. To opponents, discipline is the key to China's success. "Chinese divers practice more," said Russian Irina Lashko, explaining her second-place springboard finish. The Chinese work out a minimum of 40 hours a week, but U.S. universities, where many divers train, limit student-athletes to 22 hours of supervised practice. Chinese facilities have far better equipment, while the U.S. lacks even a national training center. "We live rich and train poor," O'Brien says. "The Chinese live poor and train rich. It is not a level playing field."

Still, last week's lopsided outcome was not a foregone conclusion. A tense contest had been expected between the Chinese and the Russians, led by world champion Dmitri Saoutine, 22, trying for a double gold in platform and springboard. But Saoutine, renowned for explosive power and a remarkable peripheral vision that helps him position himself perfectly, placed a lackluster fifth in the springboard. He bounced back spectacularly, capturing gold in the platform event, but only one other Russian won a medal. At the canopied Georgia Tech aquatic center, however, the crowd seemed oblivious to the echoes of the old Sino-Soviet face-off. Chinese and Russians alike, even as they executed elegant spins and twists from terrifying heights, got but polite applause. And Fu, who maintains a breathtaking agility despite having grown by 3 cm and 6 kg in four years, did not draw the ecstatic reception she earned in Barcelona. Atlanta's hometown crowd of 13,000 saved its roars for two U.S. veterans, Lenzi, 28, and Mary Ellen Clark, 33, who won bronze on the platform.

Clark had battled her way back from a severe bout of vertigo, Lenzi had made a comeback from depression, and both gave extensive interviews on their afflictions. Americans all but wallowed in their fleeting celebrity, with official diver biographies from the U.S. Olympic Committee offering such details as the name of Jenny Keim's cat (Izzy, after the Olympic mascot) and the fact that Melisa Moses is dyslexic. By contrast, the Chinese deflected personal questions at international press conferences and granted few, if any interviews. Did they lose the public relations contest? In the geopolitical scheme of things, the Chinese did not seem to care. When it came to splashless entries, fearless flips and precision pivots, they piled on the points--and that, in the end, was what counted.