Grace Reid and Kat Torrance were left satisfied with a job well done after sealing women's 3m synchro bronze at the Diving World Series in Beijing.
On the opening day of competition in the second World Series event of the year, the British duo held their nerve on the final couple of dives to earn a podium spot – and nearly came away with silver.
A sub-par opening dive left Reid and Torrance sixth in the early going and they were fourth after three dives.
After a solid fourth round, they saved their best until last – pulling off a reverse 2 ½ somersault pike, which scored 66.60, and secured third spot with a total of 292.47, just 8.46 behind Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith of Australia in silver.
Home favourites Shi Tingmao and Wang Han of China were unstoppable – scoring higher than the rest of the field in every single round to take a dominant gold – but the Brits were content to see their hard graft paying off with a medal.
“Katherine and I are really, really pleased – we’ve been working really hard for the past two weeks in training and we’ve been progressing with each and every competition we’re doing,” said Reid.
“That was close to our personal best so we’re really, really pleased.”
And Torrance added: “I think it was nice and steady from us both.
“We kept our heads in the competition, which is what it’s all about on the day and I think overall it’s a really good result for us, so we’re both really happy.”
Reid and Torrance were the only Brits to earn a medal in Beijing, although newly-paired duo Tom Daley and Matty Lee had another promising outing – matching their fourth-place finish in Sagamihara last weekend in the men’s 10m synchro platform.
Double Olympic bronze medallist Daley – continuing his international comeback after taking a break from diving since becoming a father last June – and Lee increased their overall total by more than 13 points from last week, scoring 400.86.
The women’s 10m synchro final saw European Champions Eden Cheng and Lois Toulson competing and their final score to 289.38 was good enough to rank sixth.
And Jack Laugher and Dan Goodfellow were back in action after last weekend’s bronze but they produced a failed dive in the final round of the men’s 3m synchro springboard final to slip from the bronze medal berth to seventh, with a score of 327.12.
Sportsbeat 2019