Laugher and Goodfellow claims Britain's first medal of 2020 Diving World Series

Jack Laugher and Dan Goodfellow claimed Great Britain’s first medal of the FINA Diving World Series 2020 but were denied a golden start in Canada.

In a thrilling finale to a closely-contested Men’s 3m Springboard on day one of the competition in Montreal, Laugher and Goodfellow led by 0.63 points from Russia’s Evgenii Kuznetsov and Nikita Shleikher heading into the final dive.

But Laugher and Goodfellow could only score 77.52 for their forward 4½ somersaults in the tuck position and were leapfrogged by the Russian duo who earned 84.36 points for the same dive.

That led to them claiming the gold medal with a score of 421.95 – 6.21 points ahead of Laugher and Goodfellow’s total of 415.74.

Laugher said: “Overall, we’re very happy. This was our first competition back since the World Championships last year.

“We hadn’t been able to dive at Nationals since I had a bad back. I felt I could have done better on my last dive but our final score of 415.74 was a strong start for us.”

Goodfellow added: “This was an excellent score to start – we’re very happy with that.

“We’re looking forward to the next two World Series events in this Olympic year.”

In the Women’s 3m Synchronised, Grace Reid and Katherine Torrance finished outside the medals in fourth place.

They were third heading into the final dive of the competition and scored 63.00 for their forward 2½ somersaults with one twist in the pike position to finish on 281.82 points.

But the Russian duo of Kristina Ilinykh and Mariia Poliakova pipped the British pair to the bronze medal after scoring 69.30 in the fifth round to finish 3.68 points clear on 285.60.

Canada’s Jennifer Abel and Melissa Citrini Beaulieu took the gold medal with a score of 298.83.

In the Women’s 10m Synchronised, Eden Cheng and Lois Toulson were fifth on 282.42 – 30.60 behind the gold medallists, Meaghan Benfeito and Caeli McKay, of Canada, who finished on 313.02.

Noah Williams and Matty Lee also finished fifth in the Men’s 10m Synchronised competition.

Their total of 374.79 left them 37.65 adrift of Russia’s Viktor Minibaev and Aleksandr Bondar who took the gold medal with a score of 412.44.

Picture: British Swimming Twitter