Esther Qin and Georgia Sheehan snatched women’s 3m synchro springboard gold after a rival Aussie pair crashed from first place to last with a disastrous final dive on Wednesday.
Qin and Sheehan jumped from fourth to the top of the standings with their inward 2-1/2 somersaults last dive to clinch the gold with a total of 284.10 points.
Australia’s Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith were leading but bombed out of contention with a botched forward 2-1/2 somersaults with two twists dive which earned them no points and left them in seventh and last position.
Chinese-born Glasgow Games springboard champion Qin and Sheehan seized their opportunity with a 71.10 scoring final dive to zoom to the top of the standings.
“Everyone’s in the same boat, everyone’s diving in the same conditions, it’s just who can deal with them the best — which today happened to be us, which is really exciting,” Sheehan said.
A teary Keeney, who lost control of her dive and landed awkwardly, ending her team’s medal chances, put on a brave face afterwards.
“It was all over the shop for everyone with all the delays and technical stuff going on which was stress we didn’t need,” said Keeney, the world 1m springboard champion.
