A new world record....and a cool new scruffy beard

Alexandre: award-winner for "Best Transformation from skinny-13-year-old-phenom to Uber-Hunk Dive God"

Alex has just won World Champs gold, in the process becoming the first man ever to break 800 points in 3m springboard. And 3m isn't even traditionally his best event!

All this after winning his first world title on tower in 2003, winning Athens Olympic silver in 3m, and finishing fourth in the Athens Olympic tower (in an amazingly high-level competition). Oh ya, and he won 3 golds and a bronze at the 2003 Pan American Games, swept all three boards at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, won tower silver at the 2001 Worlds, finished fourth in the the tower at the 2000 Sydney Olympics as a 15-year-old, and won two golds at the 1998 Commonwealth Games as a teeny-tiny 13-year-old. I'm not sure that anyone but an elite level diver understands how monumental these results are. This guy is certainly a star!

Absolutely amazing, and yet I'm not sure whether I'm more mesmerized by his results, or by his new scruffy look : ) Or his abs, or his flexibility, or his strength, or or or. Hmmmm, I bet he could be a circus acrobat when he retires from diving!

After Blythe Hartley's gold yesterday, that's gold medals on successive days for Canada at the World Championships. Throw in a bronze from the day before, and it's already been a great diving competition. And there's plenty more to come, like defending world champion Emilie Heymans!