Eden Cheng and Lois Toulson claimed Britain’s third silver medal of the European diving championships in the women’s 10m synchro in Budapest.
The duo, who won this title in Glasgow in 2018, started the competition slowly but finished with a flourish to claim a podium spot.
Cheng’s slip on their third dive looked to have cost them a chance of a medal as they fell to the back of the pack with two dives remaining.
But from there, the pair produced their best two dives of the competition. Added to that, leaders Ksenia Bailo and Sofiia Lyskun of the Ukraine bombed their final dive, allowing Cheng and Toulson to overtake them.
As a result, only Ekaterina Beliaeva and Yulia Timoshinina finished ahead of the Brits, who joined Jack Laugher and Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix in earning silver medals this week.
Cheng said of her slip: “I’m very pleased and also very proud of myself for being able to work my way, psychologically, through the remaining rounds. After that slip I was frustrated with myself, as that has never happened before, ever, so I was just trying to be present in the moment and take it dive by dive rather than what had happened before. “You train for these kind of incidents I guess, so I just tried to hold on and make the dive.”
Toulson added: “I was really happy with how we performed and after that mishap I could see Eden was a bit shaken, but I’m really proud of how she managed to do her last two dives really well. It was a good lesson to learn here and we still managed to come away with that silver medal, so I’m really pleased. “We had a good chunk of training synchro together, as I spent two months down in London, and I think that put us in a really good position. We haven’t had a solid block of training like that before, as we’re obviously at opposite ends of the country! Now we’re ready to go home and do the same again and hopefully we’ll be ready for the next competition. With diving anything can happen, but if we’re selected for the Olympics I think we definitely have the potential to medal.”
Laugher had hoped to add another medal to his collection in the men’s 3m final, but was unable to find the consistency necessary to challenge for a podium spot, eventually having to settle for sixth.
Compatriot James Heatly came closer, but also missed out in the end, finishing in fourth place.
The action continues on Saturday with Tom Daley and Matty Lee in action in the men’s 10m synchro final.
Sportsbeat 2021