PROMISING PAIR SLIP UP AFTER IMPRESSIVE START
British divers Tonia Couch and Stacie Powell had a day of
highs and lows at the World Championship pool in Melbourne
after making the Women's 10m Synchro final impressively and
then finishing a disappointing ninth overall.
A missed fourth dive did the damage for the British pair,
who were lying in fourth place after round three, and in trying
to make up too much ground on their final dive they slipped
to ninth.
The day had started promisingly for Couch (Plymouth) and
Powell (Southampton Diving) after they scored over 300 points
for the first time internationally to qualify fifth for the
final.
A steady start to their list of five dives saw them hold
on to that fifth spot before a well executed Inward 2.5 Somersault
saw them close on the medal standings to put them up to fourth.
Their next dive, however, was their downfall as the Forward
3.5 Somersault was some way out and they dropped to eighth.
Playing catch up with the final dive the pair went for broke
and ended the final in ninth with a score of 287.70.
"We're a little disappointed," said National Performance
Director Steve Foley. "They were given their opportunity
in the final, the door opened in round three but they faltered
on their front 3.5 and the chance was gone.
"Considering Tonia's injury (thumb) and the fact they
haven't trained together as much as we would have liked, we've
seen some signs for the future though today with an excellent
performance in the preliminaries.
"The big thing is that we've got a lot of work to do
still and we saw that tonight. They've got to compete twice
in one day and not just once. That performance shows we've
got a way to go if we're going to be at the Beijing Olympics
in the Women's 10m Synchro."
Powell was pleased with her own performance, which she hopes
to take forward to tomorrow's individual 10m event, and is
looking forward to working with Couch over the coming months
to ensure Britain has a presence in Beijing.
"We had a great preliminary session but couldn't carry
it through to the final," said Powell. "Earlier
we showed we could compete with the best in the world but
tonight was a different story. If we'd delivered the same
type of performance out earlier score would have given us
the bronze.
"There was more pressure out there in the final but
it's the same for everyone and we have to learn to cope with
that if we are to qualify the team for next year's Olympics
later this season."
Partner Couch has been suffering with a thumb injury recently
and this has hampered her ability to train as often as she
would have liked with Powell.
"Personally I was pleased with the synchro element of
our dives, considering our broken preparation, but the technical
side of things needed to be better.
"I had a really good take off on the front 3.5 but something
went wrong afterwards and that put us off the pace. We tried
to get back but by that stage we'd left ourselves too much
to do."
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