New synchro partnerships for 2019

Olympic and European champion Jack Laugher will now be joined on the boards by Olympic platform bronze medallist Dan Goodfellow for the 3m Synchro event.

This is following Rio 2016 Champion Chris Mears’ decision to take a year out from the sport. He finished the 2018 season with silver at Glasgow 2018 and will return to the boards later in 2019.

With World Champion Tom Daley now back in training and making his return to competition at the start of 2019 he was in need of a new 10m Platform Synchro partner and Matty Lee has stepped on.

Lee has made the move to London to work with Daley full time.

Alexei Evangulov, British Diving’s National Performance Director, explained, “It’s very rare for a platform diver to transition to a springboard dive, never mind into a synchro pairing.

“It is a unique situation and British Diving are very excited about this new pairing of Jack and Dan, and how they will perform together.

“Goodfellow has proven that he can deliver very high DD [degree of difficulty] and the pair have now already started training together with their first sessions at the recent warm weather camp in Antalya, Turkey.”

Commenting on the partnership of Daley and Lee, Evangulov said, “We looked at several different options of who could join Tom in the 10m Synchro event, including Plymouth’s Matthew Dixon and London’s Noah Williams.

“Our criteria focused heavily on again having a high degree of difficulty and Matty Lee was the best fit. Lee was already looking at introducing new and harder dives and that’s why we have chosen him.

“The most efficient synchro practice happens when the pair work and train together all the time and that is why Matty has made the move to London.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the new pairs in action at next February’s National Cup.”