Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow wrapped up a stellar night for Britain’s divers at the European Aquatics Championships on Thursday night, winning silver after Jack Laugher had earlier bagged his first-ever European medal with a second-place finish in the 3m springboard.
The duo, who had led the field until the final dive much to the delight of the vociferous home crowd at London Aquatics Centre, finished on a score of 444.30, just 0.96 points behind German winners Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausding.
Following on from their four 2016 World Series medals, the pair dominated the leaderboard from the off, scoring 54.60 in the opening round before being pipped to the gold medal by the German duo in the final dive.
And while Daley, who won gold on Wednesday night in the mixed 3m synchro, admits he and Goodfellow had all eyes on gold, he insists they were thrilled with their showing.
“I think we’ve got lots of positives to take from tonight’s performance,” he told British Swimming. “Yes we wanted the gold medal and yes it was really close but we’re happy.
“It was the highest score we’ve ever got on our first two dives and we were only two points off our highest score and we dropped two of our dives.”
Goodfellow added: “Our partnership is really good, we came together for our first performance at the National Cup at the beginning of the year and our scores have continued to increase each time we compete.
“There’s room for improvement but the partnership is strong.”
Earlier in the day, Laugher had blown the rest of the field out of the water in the preliminary rounds, finishing more than 60 points ahead of his nearest competitor, before securing silver in the final to kick off a great night for the Brits.
The 21-year-old took an early lead in the final, scoring 88.40 points in the opening round before dipping into second place after three dives.
A score of 91.65 in the fourth round briefly bumped the double Commonwealth Games gold medallist back up into top spot, but Russian Evgeny Kuznetsov proved too strong with a final round total of 100.70 to clinch gold.
And with less than three months to go until the Olympic Games get underway in Rio, Laugher admits his first European medal is just the boost he needed ahead of the qualifying trials next month.
“I feel like I came out really strong, my first two dives were amazing and I felt strong,” he said.
“I have an issue where sometimes my calves cramp up, this happened on dive two which then meant I dived short on my third dive. It shook me a little but I bounced back.
“I still finished with an ok score and there were some good things in there but a little bit of a disappointment that a slight mishap affected my final position.
“I’ve had a positive season so far and that medal will help my confidence, but I’ve got things I know I can work on to be ready for the Olympic trials in June and then beyond.”
Sportsbeat 2016