Daley and Brick secure ninth in the world

Daley and Brick started their competition well with good scores on both of their required dives and they lay in fifth place as they moved into round three.

The pair dropped their Inward 3 ½ Somersaults tucked and their Reverse 3 ½ Somersaults tucked and went into the final round ranked eleventh. They finished their first World Championship final well with a strong Back 2 ½ Somersaults 1 ½ Twists piked.

They moved up one place from their prelim as they finished in ninth place with a total of 390.36.

“It wasn’t our best performance today but we did execute some of dives really well and got the highest score on one of them which just shows our potential as a pair,” Daley said. “I’m quite happy considering we haven’t been together as a pair for long and we’ll both take away a lot of positives from our performance.”

“This is a new partnership and we will be working together a lot more over the next few months and years,” Brick added. “I’ve gained a lot of experience here this week. Training and diving with Tom gives you that and it has been fantastic.”

The World Championships proved to be the first time new National Performance Director Alexei Evangulov has taken his diving team to a major international competition. He has been impressed with his squad as they achieved one of the most successful performances of a British Diving team at a World Championships.

“I think this was a great performance from the team,” Evangulov said. “We have had nine finalists, seven top eight finishes and one gold medal.

“I think the performance of the team has made me hopeful of future successful performances because we have been mainly successful here.

“My overall impression of the team has been very good and I think they performed better than I expected them to. It has been very good.

“What is going to be good for the future is that we have some good ‘b’ level and junior athletes coming through and this will mean that there will be competition for places on the national squad. I think it would be good for the divers to fight for places on the squad.”

-ENDS-

The 13th FINA World Championships will take place from 17th July – 2nd August 2008 in Rome.

The British Gas squad consists of:

Charles Calvert – City of Leeds
Peter Waterfield – Southampton Diving
Nick Robinson-Baker – City of Sheffield
Ben Swain – City of Sheffield
Max Brick – Southampton Diving
Thomas Daley – Plymouth Diving
Rebecca Gallantree – City of Leeds
Brooke Graddon – Plymouth Diving
Tonia Couch – Plymouth Diving
Megan Sylvester – City of Sheffield
Monique Gladding – City of Sheffield

Diving events take place from 17th – 25th July
Synchro takes place from 18th – 25th July
Open Water takes place from 19th – 25th July
Swimming takes place from 26th July – 2nd August

For further details contact British Swimming Media Officer Gemma Field on 01509 632238, 07917 726431 or email gemma.field@swimming.org

About British Swimming
British Swimming is the National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo and Open Water in Great Britain. It is responsible internationally for the high performance representation of the sport. The members of British Swimming are the three Home Countries national governing bodies of England (ASA), Scotland (Scottish ASA) and Wales. (Welsh ASA) British Swimming seeks to enable its athletes to achieve gold medal success at the Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.

About British Gas
British Gas, the biggest energy supplier in the country, has the lowest carbon intensity of any of the major UK energy suppliers in terms of tonnes of CO2 emitted per megawatt hour of electricity supplied to customers. The company is one of the biggest investors in renewable power generation, principally offshore wind. Its recently completed Lynn and Inner Dowsing development, off the Lincolnshire coast, is the UK's largest offshore wind development. British Gas is committed to energy efficiency. Our Energy Savers Report provides free expert advice on how you can cut energy use in the home and, in turn, save money. So far, the report has shown over 2 million people how they could make an average saving of £175 a year. To complete a report go to www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report

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