Daley and Waterfield take sixth after favourites Chinese take 10m Synchro Title
17 July 2011
Tom Daley and Pete Waterfield, of the British Gas GBR Diving Team, finished sixth in the 10m Synchro Platform diving competition at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai.
The duo, who have only been competing together since the beginning of the year, were in the mix for medals in the first two rounds, sitting in equal third but dropped to sixth after some exceptional diving by the pairs from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, America and China.
Considering the week we have had, we have been very luck to compete today.
The pair didn’t have the best preparations ahead of the competition with Waterfield suffering with flu like symptoms during the week.
After qualifying for the finals in fifth place, Waterfield and Daley settled for sixth with an overall score of 407.46.
Daley said: “I think our performance went well despite our preparations which haven't been at their best. We just got in there to do our dives as best as possible.
“I think we were very lucky to compete today. But it is always great to dive with Pete and I have learnt loads from him.”
“Considering the week we have had, we have been very lucky to compete,” said Waterfield. “I have been ill this week and we haven't had a chance to train properly together so top six is pretty good”
The Chinese partnership of Qui Bo and Huo Liang were top of the table after another strong performance. They were favourites to take the win and didn’t disappoint their home crowd by taking the title in 480.03. They were 37 points clear of the silver medallists from Germany, Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausding.
The German pair finished second with 443.01 after a fantastic last dive put them ahead of the Ukrainians in third.
Oleksandr Bondar and Oleksandr Gorshkovozov of the Ukraine, who were ranked sixth going into the finals, stepped up the challenge to take the bronze medal in 435.36.
Waterfield will hope to recover from his illness to compete against Daley in the 10m Platform competition on Sunday 24th.
In the 1m Springboard preliminaries, Hannah Starling and Alicia Blagg were both competing in their first major championships.
Although they didn’t make it through to the finals Starling, who finished 25th with 226.40 and Blagg 30th with 212.50, gained valuable experience of competing on a big stage.
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