Flying the flag for Great Britain on the second night in London, Grace Reid and James Heatly added to the GB medal tally with bronze at their debut FINA/NVC Diving World Series leg.
In an exciting first for the competition, the Scottish duo took to the boards in the Mixed 3m Springboard synchro final scoring a total points tally of 299.76.
After an incredible fourth round dive of 70.20, the Brits jumped up the leader board and fought off advances from Mexico and Ukraine in the final round to secure their spot on the podium.
Reid said: “We’re unbelievably happy with that result; we can’t believe it. We were stood in the showers after each dive just watching people drop below us in the table and we we’re totally shocked.”
Heatly said: “We’ve beaten off some really established divers tonight and we really didn’t think that was going to happen. This is our first international event; it’s just crazy.”
Chinese pairing of Hao Yang and Han Wang took gold with 336.90 ahead of Canada’s Francois Imbeau-Dulac and Jennifer Abel for silver in 309.60.
Gold medallist from the Dubai and Kazan legs of the 2015 series, Jack Laugher, faced stiff competition in the semi-finals of the Men’s 3m Springboard earlier in the day.
The Commonwealth silver medallist was well positioned after two rounds following a duo of solid dives, but struggled to capitalize on his high difficulty routine in round three falling behind the field.
Despite tallying the highest score in the final round by almost seven clear points, Laugher narrowly missed out on a place in tonight’s final finishing fourth in his semi-final with 434.15.
In the previous semi-final, British teammate James Denny took to his debut individual event of the FINA/NVC Diving World Series, impressing with a string of consistent dives.
The 21 year old, who competed in the Men’s 10m platform synchro yesterday, scored 402.40 points to take sixth place in his semi-final.
Alicia Blagg and Rebecca Gallantree also put in solid performances in the Women’s 3m Springboard semi-finals, finishing fifth and sixth respectively in their groups.
Diving News is courtesy of British Swimming.
