Grace Reid and Kat Torrance sealed Women’s 3m Synchro bronze on the opening day of competition at the Chinese leg of the FINA Diving World Series in Beijing.
The British pair held their nerve in a final of close margins to secure a spot on the podium alongside the dominant force, home favourites Shi and Wang of China, with Australian paring Keeney and Smith bagging the silver.
The rounds saw a tussle between Great Britain and Australia for the second and third place podium berths, but it was the pair from down under that edged out an eight-point gap from their final dive.
Reid and Torrance, who finished with a score of 292.47, landed their best dive in the fifth and final round of action, a Reverse 2 ½ Somersault Pike (305B), which scored 66.60.
Of their performance, Reid said:
“Katherine and I are really, really pleased – we’ve been working really hard for the past two weeks in training and we’ve been progressing with each and every competition we’re doing. That was close to our personal best so we’re really, really pleased.”
Torrance added:
“I think today was nice and steady from us both. We kept our heads in the competition, which is what it’s all about on the day and I think overall it’s a really good result for us, so we’re both really happy.”
Day one in the Chinese capital also saw British representation in three other finals, with the newly paired duo of Tom Daley and Matty Lee, who made their international debut in Sagamihara last weekend, matching their fourth place finish from last week. However the 10m Synchro pair made a marked improvement in the way of a point’s total, increasing it by more than 13 points to 400.86.
The Women’s 10m Synchro final saw European Champions Eden Cheng and Lois Toulson take to the highest board inside the world famous ‘Water Cube’ venue. The Crystal Palace and Leeds based divers delivered a strong list of dives to raise their final score to 289.38 and rank sixth after five rounds of diving.
Jack Laugher and Dan Goodfellow were back in action after last weekend’s bronze but it wasn’t to be in Beijing, a failed dive in the final round, their Forward 4 ½ Somersault Tuck (109C) seeing the pair slip from the bronze medal berth to seventh and a score of 327.12.
Full results from day one can be found here.
The diving action resumes on Friday, with full coverage available on FINA TV and updates across our social media channels.
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