Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow are aiming to keep hold of their 10m synchro title as they lead a nine-strong Great Britain team to the 2013 European Diving Championships in Rostock.
The pair, who finished fifth at the London 2012 Olympics last summer, will arrive in Germany full of confidence following strong outings in the Diving World Series this season.
Bronze medal-winning performances in Mexico and in a Grand Prix event in Fort Lauderdale will give Couch and Barrow hope that they can regain their European crown when competition gets underway on June 18.
They became the first British females for 74 years to win European gold last year and Couch said: “We’ve been training really hard in the preparation. Training has been going well and we have had some good synchro sessions ahead of the competition so we are feeling pretty confident.
“We performed well at the World Series and got good results which was great but there weren’t any European divers in the events we competed at so Rostock will be a good test of where we are ahead of World Championships.
“We will need to just think about what we’ve got to do and not what the other athletes are doing then we should be fine.”
Fellow Olympians Rebecca Gallantree, Hannah Starling and Alicia Blagg will be back in action in the springboard events as they look to continue their progress through 2013.
Meanwhile four divers will be competing at their first senior European level meet. James Denny, Daniel Goodfellow, Oliver Dingley and Josh Dowd will be looking to learn from Europe’s best and gain experience of senior competition.
© Sportsbeat 2013