European silver medallists Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow won the gold medal in the 10 Synchro on the opening day of action at the British Diving Championships in Sheffield.
The World Cup bronze medallists put in a dominant performance in the final to continue their development as a pair.
Daley (Dive London) and Goodfellow (Plymouth Diving) started the competition well with 102.60 points after their required dives and opened the optional rounds with their Inward 3 ½ Somersaults tucked.
They scored 79.68 and then their highest scoring dive was their Front 4 ½ Somersaults tucked with a total of 95.46.
They finished with a score of 444.48 to take their first British title as a pair.
“I think that competition was steady for us,” Daley said. “It’s what you want to do at a national championships.
“It was our last competition before Rio and only two points down on our best score. We’ve competed well at pretty much every competition we’ve been to which gives us confidence.”
“We have bonded as a pair pretty well and we’ve only been doing synchro for under a year and the performances speak for themselves,” Goodfellow said.
They were joined on the podium by City of Sheffield’s Elliott Beeden and Conrad Lewandowski who scored 312.36.
Ross Haslam (City of Sheffield) and James Heatly (Edinburgh Diving) nabbed gold with their strong finish to the men’s 3m Synchro as they beat Ross’ brother Jack to the title.
Haslam and Heatly were competing together for the first time since winning silver at the European Games in Baku.
They performed their Front 2 ½ Somersaults 2 Twists piked to a score of 70.38 and finished with a score of 364.83.
“It’s great to win here at the Olympic Trials in front of a big crowd,” Heatly said. “It was a good competition and the first time we’ve competed since the European Games in Baku. We’re going to the Grand Prix this month so it’ll be great to compete at an outdoor
competition.”
“I had an exam this morning and then got to the pool, trained, got back into the pool to compete so to have won this on a stressful day is great,” Haslam said. “In Baku my second to last dive did not go well and that’s the first time we’ve competed it since and it’s great to be back with James.”
Freddie Woodward and Jack Haslam (City of Sheffield) won the silver with a score of 363.60 and Matty Lee and Anthony Harding (City of Leeds) won bronze with 325.23 points. Yona Knight-Wisdom (Jamaica) and James Denny (City of Leeds) finished third with a guest entry. They scored 340.53.
European silver medallists Alicia Blagg and Becky Gallantree won the British title in the women’s 3m Synchro after securing a total of
288.69.
The City of Leeds pair put in a consistent performance to secure over 60 points for each optional dive.
Their best scoring dive came in the last round with their Front 3 ½ Somersaults piked for a score of 67.89.
“It’s great to get that British title but I’m a bit disappointed with how that went out there today,” Blagg said. “I feel like we could have got more out of that today but that gives us something to work on ahead of the Olympics if we get that place.”
“There’s plenty to work on with our dives,” Gallantree added. “There is some good stuff but also some stuff we do need to go back and work on. We need to go back and work on our entries and being a bit sharper.”
Tonia Couch (Plymouth Diving) and Lois Toulson (City of Leeds) took gold with a promising performance in the women’s 10m Synchro.
The pair scored consistently throughout the rounds and secured 70.08 points with their Back 2 ½ Somersaults 1 ½ Twists piked.
They finished the competition with a total of 293.22.
“It’s really exciting for us to be British Champions,” Couch said. “We were obviously the only pair in it but we competed against the boys and we know we have more to give.”
Swimming news courtesy of British Swimming.
