Ward and Birch land silver at 2015 European Diving Championships

Dive London’s Georgia Ward and Plymouth Leander’s Robyn Birch put in a world class performance to land 10m Synchro silver at the 2015 European Diving Championships in Rostock.

The pair, competing at their maiden European Championships, scored 310.74 in the final to finish narrowly behind Russia’s Yulia Timoshinina and Ekaterina Petukhova (319.20).

English divers have an excellent record in the 10m Synchro on the European stage, with 2012 FINA World Cup bronze medallists Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow having won gold in 2012 and silver in 2013.

But Ward and Birch’s performance was worthy of comparison to those of Couch and Barrow, falling shy of their 319.56 from 2012 but beating their 306.24 the following year.

There were some tough teams against us but we wanted to go in and enjoy it and it was great to come away with a medal.

And Ward admitted the English girls’ performance in Germany had taken them both by surprise.

Great to come away with a medal

“Winning silver wasn’t expected,” said Ward, who combined with Birch for bronze at the FINA Grand Prix in Gatineau in April.

“There were some tough teams against us but we wanted to go in and enjoy it and it was great to come away with a medal.

“It was crazy when we knew we had silver. We won the preliminary round and it was weird doing the prelim and then the final and we knew it would be hard to up our game.

“But we did and we were really shocked. I did the team competition and the individual as well and doing a few competitions in a row was tough but it worked out well.”

Ward finishes seventh in individual 10m

Ward also finished seventh in the individual 10m while she and City of Leeds’ James Denny were eighth in the Team event.

Matty Lee and Alicia Blagg also secured individual top 10 finishes in Rostock, in the 10m Platform and 3m Springboard respectively.

Lee scored 443.65 to finish seventh while Commonwealth 3m Synchro champion Blagg was ninth in her final on 275.50.

• Click here for full results from the 2015 European Diving Championships in Rostock.