Divers deliver at Calgary Grand Prix

14 May 2018

Britain’s divers picked up five medals at the Calgary leg of the FINA Diving Grand Prix including two silver and two bronze.

Lois Toulson and Robyn Birch sealed silver and bronze respectively behind China’s Lu Wei in the Women’s 10m Platform event. Toulson, who trains in Leeds posted a final score of 336.90 and Birch who trains out of the London Aquatics Centre scored 334.00.

Fresh from competing at the Commonwealth Games, Matthew Dixon and Noah Williams claimed second spot and silver in the Men’s 10m Synchro event.

Gold went to the Chinese pairing of Yu Duan and Yaio Zelin with a total of 455.13 points, Dixon and Williams totalled 397.98 and bronze was taken with a total of 392.28 pints by the host nation pairing of Ethan Pitman and Lauren Gosselin-Paradis.

It was bronze in the men’s platform event, where Matty Lee scored 418.90 behind Yu Duan from China on 469.00 and Canada’s Vincent Riendeau on 442.50.

The Leeds based diver tackled the most difficult programme of those in the final, with his 109c, a forward 4 ½ somersaults in tuck position, the highest difficulty dive, scoring him his best tally of 86.95. Lee’s final dive, a back 2 ½ somersaults, 2 ½ twists, earned him 70.20.

Lee’s success was quickly followed by Ross and Jack Haslam in the 3m synchro event.

The Sheffield brothers notched up a score of 379.29 – just 1.32 points ahead of the fourth placed pairing.

Gold went to Canada’s Philippe Gagne and Francois Imbeau-Dulac with China’s Zongyuan Wang and Luxian Wu in silver medal position. The Haslams secured the bronze with their final dive, a reverse 1 ½ somersault with 3 ½ twists, earning 74.55 points.

The older brother Jack also competed in the final of the individual 3m event finishing sixth

Lois Toulson and Eden Cheng finished fifth in the women’s platform synchro competition. The duo scored 261.90 over the five rounds, with their best – a 107B forward 3.5 somersaults pike – in the third round scoring 63.90.

Alicia Blagg also made the final of the women’s 3m event, finishing in sixth.