What is it about China’s Olympic diving divas that some of the richest and most influential men of Hong Kong cannot resist?

It looked like a one-off thing in 2002 when then financial secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung, nearly 50 at the time, married 25-year-old Fu Mingxia, winner of five Olympic medals, four of them gold.

What was then an oddity has since turned into something of an Olympic motif. Now Hong Kong is watching Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, the playboy grandson of legendary Hong Kong tycoon Henry Fok Ying-tung, pursue Guo Jingjing, who last week in Beijing surpassed Fu as the greatest female diver of all time when she won her second gold medal, the fourth of her career and her sixth Olympic medal overall. While the debate goes on in Internet chat rooms about which of the two divers is the most attractive, a new diving queen has been crowned.

But will Guo, like Fu – and like former Olympic gymnast Li Ning and international piano sensation Lang Lang – abandon the mainland for a new life in Hong Kong?

The 26-year-old Guo, known as the Britney Spears of the Chinese Olympic team for her egocentric clashes with the Chinese media, has kept everyone guessing, including the growing band of paparazzi who follow her every word and deed. Will it be the grind of another four years of training for the London Games in 2012 or the soft life with Kenneth Fok in cosmopolitan Hong Kong?

The question seemed to be answered prior to the Asian Games in Doha in 2006, where reports of her dalliances with Fok – who showed up at the Games to watch her stunning dives – overshadowed stories of her dominance in the diving pool.

"I will retire after the Beijing Olympics," Guo said before wowing Fok and other spectators in Doha. "After 20 years in this sport, it is very difficult. It’s time to leave, no matter how much you love it."

Guo began competitive diving at age seven, won a spot on the national team when she was 11 and has competed in three Olympic Games. Now it appeared she was ready to give up her passion for diving.

The paparazzi rumor mill went into overdrive. To win Guo’s affections, had Fok purchased a posh apartment for her in Beijing? What was suggested by their brazen nightclub-hopping in Shanghai? Were they engaged? Indeed, was she pregnant?

This is not the first high-profile public romance for the temperamental diver.

Guo’s one-time boyfriend, fellow diver Tian Liang, 28, married another woman last year. The two divers, stars of the 2004 Games in Athens, became known as the "prince and princess of diving" and were so intimately linked in the public mind that they were called Liang Jingjing. But that was before sparks reportedly flew between Guo and Fok on the Hong Kong leg of her post-Athens victory tour.

If you believe the Hong Kong and mainland media, their relationship continues to smolder today – too hot sometimes, with seething arguments and threatened break-ups. And the big, unanswered question continues to tantalize: Did Tian jilt Guo, driving her into the arms of Fok? Or, did Fok use his charms – and money – to steal her away? Gossip-lovers may never know.

Will Guo really retire after Beijing 2008?

Guo will be 30 by the time the London Olympics roll around. That’s a long time for a Hong Kong playboy-tycoon to wait, even if he is waiting for a mainland diving diva.

Is it over? Will she change her mind? What’s next?