Platform, Men

The two Chinese divers were favored. Xiong Ni was the defending champion and had been runner-up at the 1991 World Championships. But the winner at 1991 Worlds was his younger teammate Sun Shuwei, who had also won the 1990 Asian Games. Earlier in 1992, at Dive Canada, Sun had the highest single dive ever, to that time, scoring 102.00 for an inward 3½ tuck. The two led the qualifying with Xiong first.

In the final Sun took the lead on the last compulsory dive and held it to the end to win the gold medal, finishing with his inward 3½ tuck, on which he scored 99.96 points, the third highest scoring dive ever. The silver medal went to the surprisingly consistent American Scott Donie, who was little known prior to the US Olympic Trials, and took advantage of blown dives by the other contenders. Xiong went way over on a back 3½ tuck in the eighth round, which dropped him back to the bronze medal. The early leader in the final was German Jan Hempel, who over-rotated his eighth and ninth dives, dropping off the podium to finish fourth. The other American Matt Scoggin, who had won the US Trials, scored zero points on his seventh dive as he crashed into the water on his back after losing his handgrip while doing a back 3½ tuck (DD = 3.3) and eventually placed 10th.

This was the only Olympic appearance for Sun, who would win silver at the 1994 Worlds. Xiong added bronze in this event to his 1988 silver. He would later win three diving gold medals, springboard in 1996 and 2000, and synchro springboard in 2000.