GERRARD CLAIMS FIRST TITLE OF THE COMPETITION
The first day of the ASA National Diving Championships 2007
kicked off with the 1m springboard event seeing Britain's
top divers competing to be crowned British Champion.
The women's event saw promising performances from all eight
competitors in the pre-lims, with Tandi Gerrard (City of Leeds)
taking an early lead and finishing in the top spot with a
score of 242.50.
Going in to the final, the 29-year-old was hopeful of a medal
winning performance. She completed the final in front of club-mate
Amy Dawson. The Commonwealth medallist, missed a couple of
dives but still managed to win the final with a score of 224.70.
"I could have hit the dives harder," she said.
"I was slightly disappointed with a couple of them and
I know I could have got higher scores but I am very happy
to have won the event."
Dawson finished in second place with a score of 196.00, and
in bronze medal position was Southend-on-Sea Diving's Lottie
Thompson with 183.65 points.
"I am really pleased and excited by getting the silver
medal," said Dawson. "I was quite disappointed with
the pre-lims, but worked harder for the final. I knew that
I had to push myself and I was pleased with how well I did."
In the Men's event Ben Swain (City of Sheffield) and Gareth
Jones (Southampton DA) went into a closely fought final, with
both wanting to take the title. But Swain missed his second
dive to give Jones the advantage and he went on to take the
gold medal.
"That wasn't my best performance but I am still pleased
to have finished top," said Jones. "I am really
looking forward to my stronger events, the Platform and the
Platform synchro. I am looking to improve my scores and perform
well throughout the entire weekend."
Swain took the silver medal with 291.30 points. Claiming
the bronze medal was Southampton Diving Academy Tom Owens
with 276.90 points.
Nicholas Robinson-Baker and Ben Swain (City of Sheffield)
proved to be the pairing to beat in the 3m synchro event.
They took an early lead over the City of Leeds pairing Callum
Johnstone and Charles Calvert.
Johnstone and Calvert competed well but with a couple of
miss dives they took the silver with 322.50 points behind
the new pairing of Robinson-Baker and Swain. They took gold
with 337.23 points giving them their first British title together.
"I think that was pretty good," Robinson-Baker
said. "We have dived better together before but we took
the gold so I am pleased. I know we have things to work on
but the pairing seems to be going well."
Blake Aldridge and Chris Mears claimed the bronze medal with
320.22 points.
The final event of the day was the women's 10m Platform event
which saw City of Leeds Suzanne Collins and Aimee Walker take
the British title with a score of 249.51. The pair have only
been diving for the past two months.
"We are quite pleased with the result," Collins
said. "We had some good dives, some of our dives were
a little bit out but that can be worked on and we think that
we can make a lot of progress in the future. It is a new pairing
but it felt good today."
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