Grace Reid showed great resilient on day seven of the World Championships in Gwangju, to not only advance to the Women’s 3m Springboard final, but also secure Great Britain another Olympic place.
Grace Reid showed great resilient on day seven of the World Championships in Gwangju, to not only advance to the Women’s 3m Springboard final, but also secure Great Britain another Olympic place.
Fourth in this event at the World Championships in Budapest two years ago, Reid knew she was more than capable of making the final and securing that all important Tokyo place, but she had to work hard to make it happen.
Having delivered a solid performance during the three and a half hour prelim in the morning, Reid was back in action just three hours later, fighting for a top 12 finish that would see her fulfil both of her goals. However it wasn’t plain sailing, as a slow start to the competition left her languishing in 18th place after round one, only moving up two spots with her next dive.
In round four Reid finally found her groove, a lovely Forward 3 ½ Somersaults Pike (107B) rewarded with 69.75 points, moving her up to tenth, just one dive standing between her and a place in Friday night’s final.
With a huge amount of pressure resting on that final dive, Reid showed her championship qualities, a top drawer Front 2 ½ Somersault 1 Twist Pike (5152B) scoring 67.50 points to ensure she’ll be lining up in the final courtesy of an eighth place finish.
On her fight back, Reid said:
“I’m so happy! I didn’t open up very strongly but I didn’t panic – you’ve got five dives so it’s just one dive at a time. I fought back really hard and I’m really glad it’s paid off.
“I just had to trust what I was doing, listen to Jane’s [Figueiredo, her coach] comments and stick to my routine and not be swayed when things maybe went a little bit off. There’s so much pressure coming into this, as it’s so doable for so many people, so it’s such a weight off my shoulders. I’m in a final now and I want to dive well.”
Also in action in the prelims of the women’s event was Scarlet Mew Jensen, the 17 year old making her World Championship debut after winning the British Championships last month. Having never endured a competition of this length before, with no fewer than 51 divers in action, the Londoner unfortunately dropped her middle two dives, meaning she missed out on a top 18 place finishing 26th, just 11 points back.
The Marathon Swimming reached its conclusion down on the coast in Yeosu, with a strong GB quartet contesting the Mixed 5km Relay. With a line-up consisting of all four swimmers who contested the 10km events, Danielle Huskisson, Alice Dearing, Toby Robinson and Jack Burnell, the team went all out for a good result to end their World Championship campaign.
Huskisson swam a strong opening leg handing over to Dearing in 13th place, just 24 seconds off the lead after 14 and a half minutes of swimming, the Loughborough based youngster battling hard to come home 17th. She then handed over to Robinson and then Burnell, that duo moving through the field to secure the team an 11th place finish.
With the action from Artistic and Marathon Swimming having reached a conclusion, it’s all eyes on diving for the next two days until the Swimming action gets underway on Sunday. Tom Daley will be back in action in the Men’s 10m Platform, which takes place across Friday and Saturday.
Full results from the FINA World Aquatics Championships can be found here.
You can catch all the action live on FINA TV