HONG KONG: After athletics star Liu Xiang had his gold medal safely in his hand, diving queen Guo Jingjing arrived in Hong Kong Friday with nothing to say about anything as she headed off to her competition on Sunday.

Guo arrived before noon Friday and immediately headed to her hotel, B P International House in Tsim Sha Tsui. She did not say a word at the airport with crowds of media chasing after her.

There were about 50 people waiting for Guo at the lobby of the hotel around noon - most of them press. To everybody's disappointment, Guo did not show up at the lobby.

At about 1 pm, the director of sales and marketing of the hotel, Bernard Chan, said the whole swimming team including Guo had already checked in, settled in their rooms and they were not going to have any interview. Although he urged the press corps to leave the hotel, some diehards at the venue, unable to take an implied "No (comment)!" for an answer, kept their pointless vigil, hoping for their sound bite from Guo, only to ultimately fail.

After a short rest at the hotel, Guo went to practice with her partner Wu Minxia at the Kowloon Park Swimming Pool. Predictably, her every movement attracted a lot of applause and cheers - which lasted about as long as her one-hour training session.

Guo is still waiting approval to retire from the national team to further her studies at Beijing Sports University.

There are rumors circulating suggesting that the diving queen has no immediate plan to marry Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, grandson of Hong Kong's late business tycoon Henry Fok. There are those claiming that the couple is breaking up. Yet Fok went to the Swimming Pool at about 8 pm Friday night during the Synchronized 10m Platform Men's Final. Although silent, he seemed to enjoy watching the competition, according to observers.

Guo is competing in the Synchronized 3m Springboard Women's Final at 2 pm Sunday.

(HK Edition 12/12/2009 page4)