Four medals won as British divers qualify for World Cup Super Final

Great Britain’s divers won four more medals at the second leg of the Diving World Cup in Montreal, Canada.

The three legged event continued at the Montreal Olympic Pool where athletes from 22 nations came into this competition hoping to book their place at the Diving World Cup Super Final in Berlin this August.

Three more medals were won by British divers in the synchronised events with Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix also winning bronze in the Women’s 10m Platform.

The first of those synchronised medals was won on the opening day when Matty Lee and Noah Williams teamed up for bronze in the Men’s 10m Platform.

Lee and Williams scored a total of 403.98 for their six dives as their successful partnership continued.

Their best dive, a forward 4 ½ somersault tuck in the final round, scored 82.14 points to edge out the Mexican pair of Randal Willars Valdez and Jose Balleza Isaias by 5.82 points for bronze.

Afterwards, Williams told Word Aquatics: “We both made slip-ups on a few different dives.

“We tried to stay composed and knew anything could happen in the end.”

Lee added: “It’s all about staying within the fight for the medals; we did that and got a bronze so I’m kind of happy.”

On day two, Britain won a pair of silver medals after Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and Lois Toulson finished second in the Women’s 10m Synchronised event and Jack Laugher and Anthony Harding repeated the feat in the Men’s 3m competition.

Laugher and Harding were particularly impressive as they improved their total from the first leg by almost 20 points.

They scored a total of 443.10 with three of their four optional dives scoring more than 80 points a piece.

China’s Daoyi Lang and Zongyuan Wang won gold with 492.18 but the British pair showed that they have the potential to compete with the Chinese duo with a strong performance.

Spendolini-Sirieix and Toulson also improved on their first leg score as they followed up on their silver in China with another silver in Montreal.

They finished just ahead of the Wassen sisters from Germany (Christina and Elena) after scoring 316.68 for their five dives.

Only a string of perfect execution scores from the judges for China’s Honghan Quan and Yuxi Chen saw them finish 40 points ahead of the British pair to win gold.

On the final day an under the weather Spendolini-Sirieix performed well to finish third in the competition with 357.80 points.

Despite suffering with illness, she still made the podium with a consistent display across her five rounds of dives.

Spendolini-Sirieix was only beaten by the China’s Quan and gold medal winner Chen who scored 12 perfect scores from the judges as she set a total of 458.20.

Super Final places booked

The results mean that after winning seven medals during the opening leg of the competition in China last month, 13 British places have been secured for the Super Final event in Germany.

The top 18 divers in individual events and the top eight groups in the synchronised and team events qualified for the Super Final and World Aquatics have now released the final rankings.

Four of Britain’s Super Final places have come in the synchronised events for both the men’s and women’s 3m and 10m where the British team placed second in each of the overall standings.

That was partly in thanks to the back to back silver medals from the pairings of Spendolini-Sirieix and  Toulson from the 10m board as well as Laugher and Harding from 3m’s which saw Great Britain secure second spot in each of the Women’s 10m Synchronised and Men’s 3m Synchronised standings.

Yasmin Harper also qualified in the Women’s 3m Springboard in sixth place, with Grace Reid finishing in fourth.

Spendolini-Sirieix’s two bronze medals in either leg of the Women’s 10m Platform saw her qualify in third place with Toulson just behind in her in fifth overall.

Williams, Lee and Ben Cutmore all made the top 18 in the Men’s 10m Platform meaning two of them will go on to compete in the Super Final as only two individuals can enter from one nation.

Jack Laugher (third) and Daniel Goodfellow (fourth) will be a part of the Men’s 3m Springboard final.

Great Britain’s Mixed 3m and 10m Team also qualified in third place.

They will all go on to compete in the German capital where the winners will be crowned the inaugural World Aquatics Diving World Cup Super-Final champions.

You can see all the rankings from the Diving World Cup events here.