English pair Matty Lee and Noah Williams won the men’s synchronised 10m platform in dramatic circumstances as Williams overcame an injured ankle to limp away with gold.
Lee, an Olympic champion in the event, and individual Commonwealth silver medallist Williams were the faouvrites coming into the final but were pushed all the way to the last dive by Canada’s Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray. There Williams shook off the pain that scuppered their fourth round dive to produce an immaculate 4 1/2 somersaults worth a title clinching 84.36. The Canadians finished with silver, and Australia’s Cassiel Rousseau and Domonic Bedggood won bronze.
The home crowd had roared as Lee and Williams stood preparing for their crucial last dive, making a noise which echoed off the walls of the Sandwell Aquatics Centre. “This is what I do diving for,” the 24-year-old Lee said after claiming his first Commonwealth title. “This is why I have achieved what I have. It is just competing. Especially in front of a home crowd. You don’t get better than this. You don’t get a chance to do this very often. We are so lucky to be able to do it - I mean that wasn’t luck out there, that was pure skill - but we are lucky to get a gold in front of a home crowd. I’m ecstatic.”
It followed Canada’s 21-year-old Mia Vallee winning gold in the women’s 1m springboard ahead of Australia’s Brittany O’Brien, as English teenager Amy Rollinson earned an impressive bronze medal.
“I was just expecting to turn up and have a bit of experience, so to get this is crazy,” said Rollinson, of Luton Diving Club, who revealed she never once looked at her rivals or the leaderboard. “I’ve never bothered looking at what everyone else is doing… I genuinely think the crowd helped, just standing on the board it was so nice to hear people cheering you to do well.”
Earlier Jack Laugher collected his second gold medal of these Commonwealth Games as he and England teammate Anthony Harding dominated the synchronised 3m springboard final.
Laugher and Harding were leading after the opening two mandatory dives and then motored into the distance with their final four dives, set at a much higher degree of difficulty than the rest. Malaysia’s Gabriel Gilbert Daim and Muhammad Syafiq Bin Puteh won silver as Australia’s Samuel Fricker and Shixin Li – who finished second to Laugher’s gold in the 1m springboard final on Thursday – won bronze.
“Me and Tony are good friends, we’ve got a lot in common, our diving styles are very similar,” Laugher told the BBC after the final. “Tony was talking about me selecting him – he deserves this, he’s a great athlete and he’s finally got his chance and he’s grabbed hold of it.
“That’s something I need in my career, someone with that motivation and drive to want to be the best and keep my fire ignited. I’ve been doing this for a long time and having someone new on the scene, raring to go, I think it’s really good. The synchro partnership is obviously great, we’ve done some amazing performances this year, and I just can’t wait for the future.”
