Laugher and Mears win 3m Synchro gold

Jack Laugher and Chris Mears dominated the 3m Springboard final on the fourth day of diving in Rio, to secure Team GB’s first ever Olympic gold medal in the sport.

Their first dive of the competition was well executed, scoring 52.80 to set a solid foundation for the remainder of the rounds.

The two divers were consistent throughout the competition and they took an advantage after a number of small mistakes by their main rivals, the Russians, Americans and the Chinese.

Laugher commented: “It’s fantastic to win Britain’s first Olympic gold in diving. We only found out that it was the first gold medal before the podium.

“The dreams happened and it’s paid off and we’re ecstatic with how we’ve done.” – Jack Laugher

“It’s one of the first on springboard as well so we’re so overwhelmed with what we’ve done, what we’ve done this year, especially with all the setbacks and with the massive risk of putting in that hard dive into our list.”

Spectacular optional dive rounds by GB duo

By the third round, Laugher and Mears, had taken the lead. They nailed their Forward 2 1/2 Somersault 2 Twists, to score 84.66 with top marks for synchronisation.. This was the lowest score of the next three dives, but it was enough to give them both some confidence.

Their dives just kept on getting better and their scores were increasing with every round that they completed. The fourth round saw the two City of Leeds divers awarded 86.58 for a Forward 2 1/2 Somersault 3 Twists.

Their final dive was huge, with a dive difficulty of 3.8, and was executed to the letter. The Forward 4 1/2 Somersault was in near perfect synchronisation and solid execution. Laugher and Mears were slightly off on their entry, but it was enough to move them out of reach.

“The Americans definitely put the pressure on us and they were quite vocal about it and quite emotional,” said Mears. “But we just stayed in our zone. We didn’t know how many points we needed because we weren’t concentrating on that. All I concentrated on was landing on my head on my dive and I did that. And so did Jack so we came out on top.”

Laugher and Mears are a great partnering and they are getting better with every competition that they take on. They currently have one of the hardest dive tariffs in the world and are pulling them off with lots of style.

The pair won gold in the 3m Springboard at the London 2016 Aquatics Championships earlier this year. They were 10 points clear of the competition.

“We did fantastic in London [at the European Championships] on our fifth round dive, the triple out, which is the hardest dive in the world on 3m. We did it well today although it can be better. But I’ve got a gold medal so I don’t care. I’m not going to go up and do it again.” – Jack Laugher

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