Laugher and Harding secure synchro world bronze

Having navigated their way through the preliminary rounds where 26 nations were whittled down to the top eight, Jack Laugher and Anthony Harding started their final with two solid required dives to set their medal hunt on solid foundations.

A polished Forward 3½ Somersaults (107B) in the third round continued that trajectory, while the British pair then rebounded well from a below par fourth to stabilise their leaderboard position with a composed Forward 2½ Somersaults 2 Twists Pike (5154B) in the penultimate round.

Going into the final dive the pair knew a shot at their third world medal together – following Budapest 2022 and Fukuoka 2023 synchro success – was on, and they duly delivered their best dive of the contest with 85.50 points awarded for a stunning Forward 4 1/2 Somersaults Tuck (109C) from the 3m springboards.

After rounding out their list on a total of 405.33 points and picking up their brilliant bronze medal, Harding said:

“I’m feeling really happy, we wanted to come to this event and prioritise a performance.

“We’ve had a difficult year with different amounts of time off and coming back after the Olympics with a change of clubs, but we wanted to come here and get another medal under the belt on our journey towards LA.”

While Laugher added:

“Yeah it was really good today, I think our aim today was to try and end up on the medal podium and obviously we’ve done that.

“I think that today the Mexicans and the Chinese were really on form and it would have of been really difficult to have caught them. Me and Anthony, and especially Anthony in the final, pulled out a really good performance – I think I’ve still got a few bits to work on but I’ve gained a lot of knowledge now from that competition moving forwards to the individual later this week.”

The following Women’s Platform Synchro saw Maisie Bond and Lois Toulson appear in their maiden world final as a pairing.

Sitting towards the bottom end of the leaderboard in the opening rounds, Bond and Toulson began to reign in the gap with their first optional dive, rising then up to fifth in the penultimate round as their execution sharpened with every dive.

Closing out confidently with a Back 2 ½ Somersaults 1 ½ Twists Pike (5253B) for a score of 68.16 points solidified their top-five position and a highly respectable result on the world stage.

“I’m feeling pretty good to be fair. We were in it for a medal but we knew it’d be a hard competition - there’s a lot we can be proud of in there as a new partnership,” said Toulson.

“Being the first season together it’s tough but we’ve had a lot of fun as well [coming together in this partnership]. It would have of been nice to have a medal but if you look at the performance overall, I’m really proud of it,” added Bond.

Stream live free-to-air coverage of the World Aquatics Championships 2025 taking place in Singapore at www.aquaticsgb.com/live.