The men’s synchronized 3m springboard event took place last Tuesday at the National Aquatics Center — a.k.a. the Water Cube — in Beijing. And diving is definitely one of the most dramatic and sexy sports on the Olympic program.

We won’t elaborate on the somersaults and the invariably smooth way these guys entered the water. Suffice to say that all the maneuvers they performed in the air were executed with perfect grace.

Our own checkpoints came after the minimal splashes. The first being when the divers swim underwater to reach the side of the pool and sometimes need to adjust their speedo before emerging in front of the peering eyes of the public — Oleksiy Prygorov knows what we’re talking about. But the Olympic pool is so stuffed with cameras that embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions are inevitable.

The second checkpoint is when they exit the water, and check again that everything is in the right place inside the speedo — Australian Scott Robertson is a compulsive checker — and turn to face the giant LED display. That’s where we noticed that Chris Colwill had the best back of the pack.

Third and final checkpoint: the ever-happy and sometimes naughty shower time.

Results wise, Wang Feng and Qin Kai of China won gold, well ahead of Dmitry Sautin & Yuriy Kunakov from Russia and Belami-ready Illya Kvasha and Oleksiy Prygorov from Ukraine (above). Canadians Alexandre Despatie — once a serious threat to the Chinese divers – and Arturo Miranda finished fifth.

Despatie will try to do better on Monday, in the men’s individual springboard event — Matthew Mitcham will be among the contenders.