As the third leg of the FINA NVC Diving World Series lands in London British diving took advantage of the home crowd support showing impressive form to take two podium finishes on day one.
In the wake of Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow’s bronze medal performance this morning, Chris Mears and Jack Laugher kept the momentum going to strike silver in the Men’s 3m Synchro final.
With a final dive score of 95.76, the pair capitalized on their strong start to win their debut medal of the 2015 series with 433.80 – a FINA NVC Diving World Series best performance.
The City of Leeds teammates rose to the occasion in front of the British crowd, building through each round to conclude with their most difficult dive – the Forward 4 ½ Somersault Pike.
Laugher said: “Our World Series started off with two fourth places which for us was really tough, we knew things had to change and we’ve managed to rectify those mistakes today. We’ve improved our routine we are more focused coming into this event in front of the home crowd.”
Mears said: “We’re really going to aim to put out our best performances in the final two legs of the series now. Ahead of the World Championships this summer it’s great to put it in people’s minds that we do belong on the podium. It’s a good position to be in.”
China’s Kai Qin and Yuan Cao led from the off to take gold with 447.75 points ahead of Britain and the Russian pairing of Ilia Zakharov and Evgeny Kuznetsov (429.21 points).
A hard fought Women’s 3m Synchro final saw Britain’s Rebecca Gallantree and Alicia Blagg narrowly missing out on the medals by an agonising 0.24 points to place them fourth after five rounds.
With a mix of youth and experience, the pair showed strength in depth to better their performance from Kazan last week by over 30 points tallying an impressive 295.44 points.
Blagg said: “We’re pretty gutted about being so close to the bronze medal, but there are some positives to take away from it and there are a lot of things that we can work on as well.
“It’s amazing being back here in London diving, the crowd was amazing and we got the biggest cheer out of everyone here.”
Gallantree said: “Last week in Kazan we were on for a medal and then had a disaster dive at the end, so it’s great that we could be more consistent here. Our back 2 ½ was much better than it has been so that’s great.”
Placing themselves at the top of the podium, China once again dominated as Minxia Wu and Tingmao Shi took gold with 331.50 points from Italy’s Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape (314.40 points) and Canada’s Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware (295.68 points).
- Click here for full results from the day