Lois Toulson breathed a sigh of relief after recovering from a poor second dive to qualify for the Women's 10m Platform final at the World Aquatics Championships in South Korea.
The 19-year-old secured Great Britain’s qualification for the event at next year’s Olympic Games by finishing seventh in the semi-finals – but her place in the top 12 had looked under threat early in the contest.
Toulson fought back with three high-scoring dives to work her way back up the leaderboard, and the City of Leeds diver explained how pleased she was to get over the line.
“It’s a massive relief,” she said. “I think it’s one of the toughest days of competition I’ve ever had.
“I was so nervous knowing Olympic spots were on the line, so I’m just really happy and really relieved that I managed to make the final and secure that spot for GB.
“It would have been easy to get down but I managed to keep my head up and put my harder dives down.”
Fellow Briton Robyn Birch couldn’t force her way into the qualifying positions after making a mistake of her own, eventually finishing 15th in the same competition.
She said: “I was really happy to make the semi-final but I’m disappointed with my performance.
“One of my dives that I’ve been struggling with seemed to drop it for me, so I’m a bit frustrated, but pleased with my other dives.”
Elsewhere, Eden Cheng and Ross Haslam recorded a sixth-place finish in the mixed team event.
Having to perform three dives each – with at least one from each of the 3m and 10m boards – both divers were in unfamiliar territory, but Haslam said he enjoyed the experience.
He said: “It’s very different to any competition we’ve done before but it’s nice to do something a bit different.
“If you’d have said before the start we’d come out with sixth, we’d have been pretty happy.”
Over at Yeomju Gymnasium, Kate Shortman and Izzy Thorpe narrowly fell short of their personal best and a place in the final of the Women’s Duet Freestyle, finishing 14th.
In the men’s 10km swim, Jack Burnell and Toby Robinson both missed out on a top-10 finish that would have seen them secure Olympic qualifying spots, finishing 12th and 18th respectively.