Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen won an Olympic bronze medal for Team GB in the women’s synchronised 3m springboard after a heartbreaking blunder from the Australian duo in their final dive.
The Aussies were sitting pretty heading into their fifth effort, requiring a score of only 58 to leapfrog Harper and Mew Jensen. But Annabelle Smith inadvertently launched herself off the side of the springboard, denying Australia the medal they looked nailed-on to secure.
A distraught Smith was consoled by coaches and her team-mate, Maddison Keeney, with the British duo watching on shell-shocked.
Former silver medallist Leon Taylor told BBC: “I cannot begin to describe what Anabelle Smith must be feeling. She is right at the end of her career, 31 years old. This could be her last Olympic games, probably is. It’s just tough but that’s diving. What a dramatic opening event.”
Harper and Mew Jensen’s triumph secured Team GB’s first female diving medal in 64 years, and their first opening-day medal in any sport since the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Commonwealth Games medallist Tonia Couch added: “Every dive counts and Australia could have got a medal. They needed 50-odd points, that’s nothing and they fell off the board. Anabelle [Smith] doesn’t normally do that.
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“Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t but it would be usually in training. I did not expect that. They probably thought they didn’t need to do much to get a medal. So much could have been going through their minds and unfortunately for them they messed up. Our girls did amazing, they got over 300 points and they should be really proud.”
The women’s 3m springboard was dominated by the Chinese duo of Yani Chang and Yiwen Chen, who posted a score of 337.68 to leave the American pairing of Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook trailing in their wake.
Harper and Mew Jensen took their place on the final podium step with a score of 302.28, more than eight points ahead of Italians Elena Bertocchi and Chiara Pellacani.
Smith’s agonising mistake cost Australia dearly as, having been in with a shout of jumping up to the silver medal spot ahead of their final dive, they ended up finishing down in fifth.
Germany’s Lena Hentschel and Jette Muller took sixth spot ahead of Viktoriya Kesar and Anna Pysmenska of Ukraine, as the inexperienced French duo of Nais Gillet and Juliette Landi finished bottom of the pile in a dramatic contest.