Sarah Barrow admitted she couldn’t have asked for a better end to her season than clinching 10m platform gold at the European Championships in Berlin.
The 25-year-old diver became Britain’s first female individual European diving gold medallist since 1927 after her score of 363.7 points handed her top spot on the medal rostrum.
Barrow, who last month won Commonwealth Games 10m synchro silver alongside Tonia Couch, went into her fifth and final dive with a 2.1-point lead over Italy’s Noemi Batki.
But the Brit finished off with a confident twist dive, which scored 76.8, to win by 17.3 points and give her a new personal best points haul.
Silver went to Batki while Ukraine’s Iuliia Prokopchuk secured bronze but it was Barrow who took the headlines, adding gold to the European 10m synchro title she won alongside Couch two years ago in Eindhoven.
"It's really good. I came here for a medal and I wanted a gold but I didn't expect it," she said.
"Tonia Couch and I made history two years ago winning the 10m synchro gold and now I've got an extra one.
"None of my dives dropped below seven marks and I actually increased to eight-and-a-half, so that is a really good individual competition for me.
"It was my last competition - I've had a big year and a lot of injuries.
"So it's good to finish the season on a high, and I can have a good break and come back again next year."
Elsewhere in Germany, 3m synchro pair Chris Mears and Jack Laugher were unable to add to Barrow’s medal as they finished fifth in the afternoon final.
The duo scored 391.98 from their six dives but missed the medals by 42 points as Russia’s Ilya Zakharov and Evgeny Kuznetsov took the title.
© Sportsbeat 2014