Coming through both the preliminary and semi-final rounds, Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix’s consistent series of semi-final dives saw her qualify in third for the Women’s 10m Platform showpiece at Paris 2024.
On the back of a historic opening week of diving for Great Britain at the Olympic Games - which featured a British pair on all four of the synchro competition podiums - the individual diving event schedule got underway with platform synchro bronze medallists, Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and Lois Toulson, both aiming to reach the Women’s 10m Platform final and line up a shot at a second medal of the Games.
The morning preliminaries were largely a formality for the British pair despite a couple of dropped dives each - Spendolini-Sirieix placing fourth in the standings and Toulson in eighth to see them finish comfortably inside the top-18 cut-off mark.
It wasn’t long before the athletes were back on the boards for the semi-finals, and Andrea got her list underway with a solid armstand dive as she had done in the prelims before rectifying the mistakes on her second round Inward 3½ Somersaults Tuck (407C) to improve her score by almost 30 points from her morning effort on that dive.
Continuing to better or equal her prelim marks, the Doha 2024 world bronze medallist rounded things out with a sumptuous Back 2½ Somersaults 1½ Twists Pike (5253B) for 78.40 points to close on a tally of 367.00 and rank third going into the final.
“I’m so happy, the job today was to get into the final and I’ve done that - I feel like I can enjoy tomorrow,” said Andrea.
“These Games have been so much better than Tokyo [for me], I’m up there with joy in my heart, I’m enjoying myself and I love diving so it’s a complete 180 degrees and I’m cherishing this whole experience.”
Unfortunately for Lois Toulson the afternoon session didn’t run as smoothly, with her first three dives failing to click and placing the Tokyo finalist in 16th with ground to make up on the top-12 over the final two rounds.
Toulson finished off with two 60+ point dives - with her Back 2½ Somersaults 1½ Twists Pike (5253B) in the final round the best dive she’d produced all day - lifting her up the leader board into 13th to just narrowly miss out on the final.
“I’m a bit disappointed with the result and I think it was only down to one dive that’s put me out of the final which is a bit annoying,” said Lois
“The team so far are doing great and obviously Andy has got that final now, then all the rest of the individuals are to go so it’s all looking really good. We’re a really tight team and I think that’s helped with that momentum to push for the performances we’ve seen.
“This Olympics has matched up with my expectations if not more - to come here with family in among the big crowd, and obviously to come away with that synchro bronze. I’ve really tried to soak all the atmosphere in, and I know when I look back I’ll still be really happy with it all.”
Ahead of Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix’s Platform final at 2pm, Jack Laugher and Jordan Houlden open Tuesday’s schedule at 9am in the Men’s 3m Springboard preliminaries. You can find details of all the upcoming aquatics action from Paris 2024 through our What’s On? Page.
Where can I watch?
The BBC will be covering the majority of the Games across BBC One and Two, the BBC Red Button and BBC iPlayer. You can find their coverage schedule by clicking here.
Discovery+/Eurosport will also be broadcasting every minute of the Olympic Games but these channels require a subscription fee.