GB DIVERS REACH OLYMPIC FINAL
28 Aug 2004 12:05
Britain's Peter Waterfield and Leon Taylor are through tonight's final of the men's 10m platform at the Olympic Games in Athens.
The pair, who won silver as a synchro partnership on the opening day of the Games, will be chasing individual medals in tonight's finale of the aquatics events after qualifying comfortably in the semi-finals.
Southampton's Waterfield finished in sixth place in 654.54 with Taylor of the City of Sheffield club safely through in ninth with 628.47.
Australia's Mathew Helm, Canada's Alexandre Despatie and China's Tian Liang were the top three finishers but all is still to play for tonight.
Waterfield, 23, and Taylor, 26, won gold and silver respectively in the 10m platform event at the Manchester Commonwealth Games. Taylor is competing in his third Olympics while Waterfield is attending his second, but nether have won an individual Olympic medal.
Taylor, originally from Cheltenham, was fifth in the platform event at the World Championships in Barcelona last year. He made a less than convincing start in Friday’s preliminaries, languishing around the cut-off point for qualification before finally securing his place with a high-scoring final dive.
In the two weeks since the pair last dived, they had returned to the GB holding camp in Paphos, Cyprus to prepare for today’s event. Team Manager Lindsey Frazer shunned any talk of a dip in form after the preliminaries on Friday and told reporters “the important thing was they got the job done and they did.”
The final gets underway at 7pm UK time (9pm Athens).
-ENDS-
■ The 2004 Olympic Games take place in Athens, Greece, between August 13 and 29. Diving runs from August 14 to 28.
For further details contact Martin Petty, British Swimming Communications Officer in the UK on 07968 411689 or email martin.petty@swimming.org
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