Laugher and Houlden spring into Olympic final

Carrying the momentum of a positive preliminaries performance 24 hours earlier, Jack Laugher and Jordan Houlden got Britain’s day on the diving boards of to a positive start by securing progression to the Men’s 3m Springboard final.

Representing Team GB for a fourth consecutive Games in the event, Laugher produced world-class efforts in the opening two rounds with his Forward 2½ Somersaults 2 Twists Pike (5154B) and Reverse 3½ Somersaults Tuck (307C) receiving back to back 80 plus point scores.

Those dives very much laid the foundations to establish Laughers progress ranked third overall, while the four-time Olympic medallist will eye up the room for improvement available on his third, fourth and fifth round dives, as he bids to add to his Paris 2024 silverware less than a week on from securing synchro bronze with Anthony Harding.

Having waited until day 11 of the Olympic programme to get his debut Games underway, Houlden hasn’t in any way looked unnerved by the occasion – putting in another solid display in the semi-final stage to qualify in fifth.

The Sheffield-based diver refined his Forward 2½ Somersaults 3 Twists Pike (5156B) from prelims to semi-final to an upgraded 76.05 points from the judges, and rounded his list out very nicely with a Forward 4½ Somersaults Tuck (109C) that earnt just shy of the 80 points mark.

“It was great, I enjoyed every moment of it,” said Houlden on reaching a final at his maiden Games.

“I felt perhaps a little more nervous than I normally do but I think I did pretty well and that’s job done in terms of the main goal of making the final and now I’ll just give it all my best tomorrow and see what I can do.

“You can’t really describe what it’s like to dive in front of this crowd – it’s an uplifting moment and adrenaline is just running through you. I’ve still got more to come and feel I’m getting bettere and better with each step.”

Having closed out strongly with 82.80 points on his Back 3½ Somersaults Tuck (207C) – a dive he’d faltered on in the prelims, Laugher commented of his semi-final performance:

“I think I started really strong, had a slight dip in the middle and brought it back really strong at the end so I’m overall really happy with my performance and there is still loads left in the tank for tomorrow.”

On facing the Chinese pair, Wang and Xie, with whom he took bronze behind in Tokyo three years ago, Laugher added:

“I’d love it to be me [challenging for gold]. Obviously I try and bring my best every time, and I am in admiration of how good they are, but I know that if I turn up and do everything as good as I can I’ve got a shot at trying to beat them.”

The Women’s 3m Springboard campaign for Grace Reid and Yasmin Harper witnessed both Britons sporting the same five dives in their preliminaries competition list, albeit opting to execute them in a different order as the pair safely placed inside the top-18 to progress to the semi-final stage.

Reid – who placed eighth on her Olympic debut in the event at Rio 2016, looked composed across the contest and landed a pleasing Reverse 2½ Somersaults Pike (305B) for 64.50 points in the third round to solidify a safe position on the leaderboard, before closing out on Forward 2½ Somersaults 1 Twist Pike (5152B) that banked 67.50 points to move her further up the rankings and qualify in fifth.

Returning to the competition boards after winning Team GB’s first medal of Paris 2024 alongside Scarlett Mew Jensen in the 3m Synchro, Harper was incredibly consistent in her semi-final qualification. Choosing to open with the Forward 2½ Somersaults 1 Twist Pike (5152B) dive, Harper set herself up well with a first round score of 63.00 – ultimately building up to an overall tally of 295.75 points to send her into the next round seeded ninth.

Both competitions continue on Thursday with the Men’s 3m Springboard final scheduled for 2pm, while the Women’s 3m Springboard semi-finals opens the day’s action from the Olympic Aquatics Centre at 9am. 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.