Jack Laugher insists a little fine tuning ahead of tonight’s men’s 3m springboard final will see him right in the mix at the Diving World Series at the London Aquatics Centre.
The 19-year-old, who missed out on the 3m springboard semi-final at London 2012, returned to the venue for the first time on Friday when he finished fourth alongside Chris Mears in the 3m synchro event.
And he was back in action the next morning for the 3m individual event, posting a score of 480.80 points in the second semi-final to qualify as the fourth-best diver overall for the final.
Three of his six dives scored over 90 points from the judges, including his penultimate two efforts to lift him into second spot in his semi-final.
It came after his third jump, an inward 3.5 with tuck, scored him only 44.20 to leave him at that point out of the top three places required.
But after storming back to comfortably qualify, Laugher insists a new personal best score was not out of his reach for the final.
“I am always aiming for the medals, it’s what I’m hoping for, but I’m just looking to put my best performance out in the final,” he said.
“With the third dive, my coach and I, have had some hard times with it over the years but over this past year, it’s actually been really consistent so it’s annoying that I dropped it here.
“That will be what I need to improve on tonight. But 480 is very close to my personal best so with a few more points from that dive and I will sail over that.”
The morning session also saw the return to the boards of Hannah Starling and Rebecca Gallantree following their 3m synchro bronze.
Competing in separate 3m springboard semi-finals, the pair just missed out on the final, with Gallantree finishing fifth with 313.85 points.
Starling fell just seven points short of the required third spot, posting a score of 309.50 although the 18-year-old refused to be downbeat.
“I think it went really well, I’m really happy,” she said. “The dives that I didn’t do so well in synchro were much better so I’m happy with that.
“It was a quick turn around having got back quite late last night and having to calm your excitement from the event but I still got over the 300-point mark so that is good.”
© Sportsbeat 2014