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Three golds as British divers continue road to Paris in Berlin

Three golds as British divers continue road to Paris in Berlin

March 26, 2024

British Swimming divers continued their fine form at the second leg of the Diving World Cup in Berlin with a further five medals, including three golds.

Nine British divers made the trip to the competition at the Europasportpark as they put themselves in a strong position ahead of the World Cup Super Final event in Xi’an, China, April 19-21.

Following on from their world title in Doha and a silver medal at the opening leg in Montreal, Great Britain returned to the top of the Mixed Team event standings to win the first gold of the weekend in Germany.

The quartet of Scarlett Mew Jensen, Jack Laugher, Andrea Spendolini Sirieix and Tom Daley combined as GB led the contest from start to finish.

They ended on a total of 461.15 points after all four divers put in a strong performance, finishing more than 30 points ahead of the German team in second place.

The result showed the strength in depth of the British line-up with Laugher coming in for the men’s 3m individual dive this time round after Daniel Goodfellow took to the boards in Doha and Anthony Harding in Montreal.

His Back 3 ½ Somersault Tuck scored 86.40 points to start off the competition alongside Scarlett Mew Jensen’s 63 point haul for her Forward 2 ½ Somersault Twist Pike to get Great Britain off to the perfect start.

Four-time Olympian Tom Daley recorded their highest score of the night, adding 91.80 points for his reverse 3½ Somersault Tuck from the 10m platform as GB soared to victory.

Speaking on the result Daley told World Aquatics: “The mixed team event is very tactical because there’s lots of different ways you can mix-and-match everyone.”

“For us, it’s about trying to maximise the weaker categories, which tend to be back and reverse, so Jack did a very solid back 3½ dive in that first round, and I think that really helped set the standard. Everyone else was really solid and held it together.”

Laugher added: “For us as a team, it’s actually really easy to chop and change. We’ve got a lot of depth all over, men and women, platform and 3m.”

Double men’s synchro crown

 

Laugher grabbed his second gold of the week on Saturday where he teamed with Harding for the Men’s 3m Synchronised Springboard title.

Like in the team event the duo led from start to finish but were always under pressure to keep their lead throughout the contest.

Heading into the final dive Laugher and Harding led by just 6.63 points ahead of Mexico’s Osmar Olvera Ibarra and Rodrigo Diego Lopez but the Mexican scored 0 for their final effort after Lopez failed to finish all three twists in their final dive.

Italy were right in the mix too, at just 13.11 points off the British pair heading into the final round but Laugher and Harding scored a massive 90.06 points for their Forward 4 ½ Somersault Tuck.

That effort meant that Italy needed more than 100 points to win in which the World Championships silver medalists scored 77.52 points to take silver with 397.62 points.

Laugher attributed the win to his and Harding’s dive list saying: “It plays to a lot of our strengths, but at the same time, we knew China weren’t going to be there so gold was up for grabs [which] can be quite difficult to deal with sometimes.”

On the final day on Sunday, Daley and Noah Williams made it a double of men’s synchro titles for Great Britain in Berlin after they cruised to victory in the 10m synchronised platform final.

They scored more than 93 points on their two hardest dives in round four and six to seize gold with a total of 465.00 points.

Canada finished in second but were more than 56 points off the British pair with Australia just behind them in third.

Speaking afterwards Daley called Williams ‘a warrior’ for overcoming illness to help the pair to gold across the weekend.

Williams explained: “I had a bad reaction to some antibiotics. It’s not a sickness, but I haven’t really recovered. Now, hopefully, I can relax and get better.”

Spendolini Sirieix’s super silver

Britain’s only individual medal of the competition went to teenager Andrea Spendolini Sirieix who placed an excellent second in the Women’s 10m Platform final.

She set an impressive total of 339.10 as she edged ahead of Canada’s Caeli McKay and the USA’s Delaney Schnell to secure a place on the podium.

China’s Quan Hongchan took the title in a list where she scored a perfect dive to set an insurmountable total of 432.80.

Spendolini Sirieix said she was “inspired by Quan’s drive, by her perfection” and that she was “inching closer and closer to the Chinese. With every competition, it is a new possibility and new opportunity to do just that.”

Yasmin Harper and Mew Jensen rounded out Great Britain’s medal haul with bronze in the Women’s 3m Synchronised Springboard.

The duo were in a close battle throughout where there was less than eight points separating the top three pairs.

Each of Mew Jensen and Harper’s final three dives scored more than 60 points as a consistent GB display fired them into the medal places as they improved from their sixth place finish in Montreal.

The United States of America’s Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon were always narrowly ahead however as they took the crown with a total of 303.21 points. Second place looked to be Great Britain’s however but a final round score of 71.10 from Australia’s Maddison Keeney and Annabelle Smith saw the 2016 Olympic bronze medallists snatch second spot away by just 1.14 points.

Elsewhere Mew Jensen also finished fifth in the Women’s 3m Springboard final with Scotland’s Grace Reid ninth whilst Laugher and Goodfellow matched their results respectively in the men’s competition.

Williams also took to the boards in the individual 10m platform where he placed in seventh with a total of 412.85.

You can catch all the results from the second leg of the Diving World Cup in Berlin on the World Aquatics website and you can watch back the action for free on Eurovision Sport.

Images: British Swimming

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