Britain’s divers suffered another day of near misses at the World Championships in Barcelona but, with a personal best achieved, Sarah Barrow wasn’t complaining.
Four British divers were in individual action on day six in the Catalonian capital with Barrow performing the best of the lot as she finished fourth in the 10m platform final.
Barrow, competing individually at a World Championships for the first time, progressed from eighth after her first dive to fourth with her second but just couldn’t quite move up again.
She scored a personal best of 346.45 for fourth, just 11.95 points away from a bronze medal, to match her finish in the same event at last month’s European Championships.
Si Yajie took gold for China ahead of Olympic champion Chen Ruolin and European gold medallist Iuliia Prokopchuk while Barrow’s British teammate Tonia Couch was ninth.
Couch qualified for the final in second place from the semi-finals but failed to deliver a medal with Barrow not overly disappointed at having narrowly missed out herself.
“It was just outside the medals but I’m not too disappointed at all,” said Barrow, who finished fifth with Couch in the 10m synchro. “I got a personal best by about one point and the last time I did that was 2008 so I’m pretty happy.
“When I came to this competition, I thought it’s my first final at a World Championships and I didn’t have anything to lose so I just sat back and enjoyed it.
“People dropped one dive but I managed to stay steady. Sometimes it’s a bit easier when you haven’t done an individual event for a while because you’ve got no expectations but I enjoyed it and I can’t wait to do it again.”
British hopes were high in the 3m springboard earlier in the day as Jack Laugher claimed first place in the preliminaries; teammate Chris Mears going out at that stage in 31st.
However nerves got the better of Laugher in the semi-finals and he failed to advance to the medal showdown after placing 16th out of the 18 divers vying for progression.
“When I came out in the morning I was feeling pretty good and qualified first from the prelim which was brilliant for me,” said Laugher. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done that and didn’t expect that all.
“I made some silly mistakes in that semi that I shouldn’t really have made. Really, I would have been in that final if I hadn’t made those mistakes but that’s just how it goes.
“I’ve never dived last before but it didn’t matter too much. It might have been a bit more pressure – I don’t really know. Maybe I’ll need to work on that because I might be that position again in the future.”
© Sportsbeat 2013