Report from Plymouth Diving

FINA WORLD SERIES, SHEFFIELD

1-2 Sept 2007

 

The inaugural World Series diving event has just finished in Sheffield and provided diving fans with the most spectacular feast of diving ever witnessed on these shores and some of Plymouth's young diving stars weren't just spectators, they were privileged enough to be a part of it.

 

Competing as a last minute replacement for Britain's injured Olympic silver medalist Peter Waterfield, young Thomas Daley stepped up and rubbed shoulders with the World's six leading men in the Platform event.  Showing the composure and confidence of someone twice his age, he spectacularly qualified for the four diver final where he was competing against the top three divers from this year's World Championships.  Despite dropping two of his six dives, which he acknowledges could certainly have been better, he still finished just 5 points behind the World Champion, Gleb Galperin from Russia which is quite astonishing for someone who isn't officially old enough to compete at major championships until next year.

 

MENS PLATFORM FINAL

1	Yue Lin		Peoples Republic of China	534.90
2	Luxin Zhou		Peoples Republic of China	505.95
3	Gleb Galperin		Russia	446.55
4	Thomas Daley		Great Britain	441.25

 

Thomas also competed in the Synchronised mens platform with partner Callum Johnstone from Leeds.  They achieved a personal best score of 388.89, finishing in 5^th place.

 

MENS SYNCHRONISED PLATFORM

1	Yue Lin and Liang Huo		Peoples Republic of China	485.64
2	Gleb Galperin and Dmitriy Dobroskok		Russia	463.08
3	Thomas Finchum and David Alasdair Boudia		United States of America	455.22
4	Jose Guerra Oliva and Eric Fornaris		Cuba	426.60
5	Thomas Daley and Callum Johnstone		Great Britain	388.89

 

Team-mate Tonia Couch (18) was also competing in the individual and synchronised platform events.

 

In her individual event, she was extremely unlucky to be allocated the tougher semi-final.  Had she been in the other semi-final, she would have comfortably made the final with her actual score, placing her 4^th.  Unfortunately, she was competing against the current World Champion Ruolin Chen from China and a former World Champion Emilie Heymans from Canada and had to settle for 3^rd in her semi-final, with the top two divers progressing to the final from each semi.

 

Her performance however, was her most confident and consistent international performance to date and will be a huge boost as she moves towards the British Championships and the World Cup trial in January.

 

WOMENS PLATFORM Semi-final B

 

1	Ruolin Chen		Peoples Republic of China	407.05
2	Emilie Heymans		Canada	355.15
3	Tonia Couch		Great Britain	310.95

 

WOMENS PLATFORM Semi-Final A

 

1	Xin Wang		Peoples Republic of China	380.85
2	Claire Febvay		France	282.60
3	Christin Steuer		Germany	261.85

 

In the synchronised platform event, Tonia competed with long term partner Stacie Powell from Southampton.  Again, the performance was one of their best ever and they were extremely unlucky to miss out on a medal.  They were in 3rd position for almost the entire competition, but were overhauled by the Australian World Championship silver medalists on the final dive and finished in 4^th.  They did however beat World bronze medalists and European Champions, Germany which will give them the belief that they are most certainly capable of qualifying for Beijing.

 

A home crowd boosted the performance of the British Team with many of the divers putting in season's best performances, or personal bests.

 

It gave the divers a real taste of the kind of atmosphere they could experience in 2012 and certainly made them hungry for more success.

 

What a great weekend for British Diving and for Plymouth's own diving stars.

 

See www.britishswimming.org, or official press releases.