Laugher and Goodfellow win Britain's first World Championships medal

Divers Jack Laugher and Daniel Goodfellow sealed Great Britain’s first medal at the 2019 FINA World Championships, winning silver in the men’s 3m synchronised.

The pair produced a consistent performance in the preliminary round to qualify in fourth place, but dropped to sixth after the second round in the final, with both of their first two dives just shy of the 50 point mark.

But their third dive – an inward three-and-a-half somersault – catapulted them onto the podium.

The score of 80.58 points put them into second place, before they briefly took the lead in the fourth round, adding 79.80 with a reverse three-and-a-half somersaults.

A somewhat shaky penultimate dive left them in third place heading into the final round, with the second-placed Mexican duo well within reach.

A clutch finish

Laugher and Goodfellow needed at least 85.56 points with their closing dive to win silver and they delivered emphatically with their most difficult dive.

A forward four-and-a-half somersaults in a tuck position scored the duo 86.64 points to take their total to 415.02.

After winning two bronze medals in 2015, that was Laugher’s best ever result at a World Championships, as it was for Goodfellow, who picked up his first ever medal at the competition.

By finishing in the top three, Laugher and Goodfellow also qualified for the 2020 Olympic Games.

Laugher told British Swimming: “Our first few dives were pretty good, up there with the pack. A little bit lower than what we were hoping for, but it was really dives three and four which scored us 80+ points both times to put us up there in the medal positions.

“I felt that gave us a nice buffer so we had a bit of wiggle room in case things dropped a little bit.

“Our last dive was fantastic as well, so thoroughly deserved and today we got the world medal so that’s all that matters, and we qualified for the Olympics!”

Goodfellow said: “At the start of he year, we sat in a room and we knew what our potential was. We’ve had a lot of bad competitions this year.

“We’ve been training really hard leading up to this, we knew what was at stake, that we could qualify for the Olympics a year early, we could take the pressure off next year.

“To do what we did today, to go out and put a good list of dives together, under pressure and get a silver, we did exactly what we came here to do.”