Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen earned their maiden World Championship medals with silver in the Women's 3m Synchro, on a night where Matty Lee and Noah Williams were agonisingly close to medals of their own on the third night of finals action in Fukuoka.
The evening began with Mew Jensen and Harper’s success on the boards, following their performance in the prelims which saw them qualify as the third seeds.
Their two require dives gave them a solid standing as the event reached the halfway stage – scoring 49.80 and 47.40 respectively to put them in second place, which was a position they’d hold throughout the five rounds.
Their form continued on the third dive – their Forward 2 ½ Somersaults 1 Twist Pike (5152B) tightening their grip on the provisional silver medal, with a score of 68.40 with two rounds to go.
It was the penultimate round where the pairing made their intentions clear, though, with an impressive score of 70.68 on their Forward 3 ½ Somersaults Pike (107B) to give them their highest individual dive score of the final and a clear path to their first medal together on the world stage.
Following Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and Lois Toulson’s historic silver medal in the Women’s 10m Synchro the previous night, the pairing did not disappoint – confirming their own second place-finish with an Inward 2 ½ Somersaults Pike (405B) worthy of 60.30 points and an overall score of 296.58.
The result is Great Britain’s third silver medal in as many days – confirming an equal number of Olympic quota spots for next year’s Games in Paris.
Looking visibly shocked and full of emotion when they found out they put themselves between the Italians and the Chinese divers on the podium, Mew Jensen gave her thoughts on the moment they found out they’d added to an already historical week of diving when speaking following the event.
“There’s loads of emotions, I’m still in shock, still can’t really believe it. I’ll definitely have a massive cry later and got a few tears earlier, nothing crazy, but yeah, I’m incredibly proud of both of us. Unbelievable.”
Harper added her own thoughts on what the medal meant to her and the rest of the team.
“I mean yeah we’re a fairly new pair and haven’t had loads of training together so we’re improving quite quickly, but we came in here just to go for it and we’ve come out of it with a silver medal and couldn’t be happier – that’s another quota spot to add to the list.
“I think it really shows the improvements we’ve made over the last few years, I think Lois and Andrea winning that medal yesterday really gave us some inspiration because we want that too, so going forwards I think the girls have really got a good shot.”
Williams and Lee were involved in a tense battle for the medals of their own on the third night of finals action at the Fukuoka Prefectural Pool – flirting with the podium places throughout the six rounds, before ultimately settling for an agonising fourth place.
Their first and second required dives went with little hitch, as they scored 49.20 and 50.40 respectively to see them in overall third place and amongst a handful of nations who made-up one of the highest quality Men’s 10m Synchro finals in living memory at a World Championships.
A trio of 70-scoring dives then followed – a Back 2 ½ Somersaults 2 ½ Twists Pike (5255B) to a score of 79.92 on the third round lifting them up to provisional second place as the competition hit the halfway mark.
Maintaining their grip on the podium places in the fourth round, it was the penultimate dive where places started to change. With the other four of the top-5 nations putting in 90+ scores on their dives, the British pairing who secured silver in this event at last year’s World Championships endured a drop in their overall execution scores for their Reverse 3 ½ Somersaults Tuck (307C), which earned a score of 73.44 and took them out of the provisional medal places in fifth.
With the Chinese pairing all-but guaranteed the gold following their ever-impressive performance, as well as Ukraine and Mexico giving themselves provisional silver and bronze respectively with solid final dive scores of their own, Lee and Williams put in their best-scoring dive of the competition – a Forward 4 ½ Somersaults Tuck (109C) to score them 91.02 points and finish with a total of 419.82.
Although the second highest score of the round, it was not enough to see them return to the podium for a second successive year as they settled for fourth place.
For full results and all the info on how to watch the rest of the diving programme from Fukuoka 2023, visit our 'What's On?' page.