World Champion Tom Daley impressed the sold out crowd in Southend as he took the gold medal in the Men’s 10m Platform final on the last day of the British National Diving Cup.
The London 2012 Olympic bronze medallist got off to a shaky start having missed his first dive (Inward 3 ½ Somersaults Tucked) but began to pull it back with an excellent twister dive in the second round.
Daley showed his true class with scores of 9.5s for his Back 3 1/2 Somersaults Piked in the last round.
The London-based diver took bronze at last year’s World Championships and secured Great Britain an Olympic quota place for this summer’s
Games. He finished the final with a total of 545.80.
“I’m pretty happy with how today went,” Daley said. “Missing my inward 3 ½ Somersaults, one of my easiest dives, definitely made me fight for gold even more, especially with Matty [Lee] diving fantastically.
“545 is a good score at the start of the season and that performance has really shown me that I can perform well no matter what.
“Every year, I start a little bit better than the one before. I’ve been working really hard and I feel like I’m in the best shape I ever have been so I’m really excited about the year ahead.”
City of Leeds’ Matty Lee put in one of his most consistent performances to take silver with 461.00 points while Plymouth Diving’s Dan Goodfellow, Daley’s new synchro partner, took bronze with 419.35 points.
World Champion Rebecca Gallantree stormed to victory in the women’s 3m Springboard with a performance that scored an impressive 326.05 points.
Gallantree put in a strong performance in both her prelims and final today and it was her Back 2 ½ Somersaults Piked that scored 72.00 points to give her a lead of ten points going into the final round.
The City of Leeds diver dropped a couple of marks on her final dive but impressed the home crowd as she retained her title.
Speaking after the event, Gallantree said: “There were some fantastic dives from the younger divers in today’s final. I heard some big scores being announced, so thankfully I was able to hold them off one more time.
“I was really happy with how I performed my fourth dive, a Back 2 ½ Somersaults. I have been working really hard on it recently and as it is also one of mine and Alicia’s [Blagg] synchro dives, it gives me a lot of confidence for the synchro event.”
Club mate Alicia Blagg put in an equally impressive performance to take the silver medal with a score of 321.00 points. The bronze went to Katherine Torrance (City of Leeds) with a score of 305.35.
Swimming news courtesy of British Swimming.
