Budapest 2022: World silver and bronze for British divers

British divers maintained their medal winning success at Europeans on Day 11 at the FINA World Championships in Budapest. Matt Lee and his new partner Noah Williams finished runner-up in the men’s 10m synchro and Jack Laugher clinched the bronze in the men’s 3m. Spain, the Netherlands and host Hungary booked the semi-final spots in women’s water polo, in the company of the title-holder Americans.

A relatively calmer day at the World Champs – since the open water swimmers enjoyed a well-deserved rest day before the toughest challenges (10km and 25km), there were only two medal events, both in men’s diving.

The Chinese were in winning mood once more in the afternoon in the Duna Arena. In the men’s 3m many expected Jack Laugher forcing them into some fight. The Brit had performed the dives of his life in 2019, at least in the first five rounds in Gwangju, building a massive lead ahead of the Chinese, only to make a nearly complete miss on his last attempt and finish third (after such a failed dive competitors usually drops to the lower ranks, Laugher still held the third place, thanks to his out-of-this-world dives).

Now he landed the bronze once more, this time without any similar thrills and falls. He had an erroneous attempt once more, though not a complete miss – he fell back to the 6th placewith two rounds to go but bounced back to finish on the podium.

“Obviously, I looked for the gold, but after my first two dives I just realised that the gold is far away from me today” Laugher admitted. “This bronze medal is based on my real performance. I was a little bit nervous before my fourth dive, and I ruined it. This competition is the first big event of this year for me, and this is a World Championships, so it’s normal to make a mistake.

“That was a big fight between me and the Columbian guy, that was so tough. There were lots of good and bad things with my dives, I need to analyse it. I’m pleased with the result of the 3m synchro, and since the World Championships have not finished for me, I need to focus on my next events.”

In recent majors the Chinese were upset for a couple of times in the 10m synchro, lately at the Tokyo Olympics where Tom Daley and Matt Lee claimed a stunning victory. With Daley staying away, Lee showed up with a new pair Noah Williams, and they managed to pull off a fine series of dives. They grabbed the second position after the second dive and kept it till the end – Lian Junjie and Yang Hao produced the best dives in all six rounds.

“I’m just really happy that we managed to put it together” Lee said. “It’s our first World Champs together, we’ve smashed it and I can’t wait for the next two years. I think our experience speaks for itself, we’re currently second best in the world. Yes, we do have two years until the Olympics, there’s a lot of work to be done, there are a few countries missing but it’s a great starting point and I can’t wait to see where we go.”

“It means so much” Williams added. “I’m overwhelmed with the whole thing, Matty is obviously a bit more experienced with this. It’s a great result, and hopefully we can build on this for future competitions. I was mainly focused on this event, and now I’ve done this, I’m really happy. On the individual competition, I’m going to just enjoy it and then whatever happens happens, and it’s a bonus.”

In the women’s water polo Spain couldn’t repeat the miracle of 2013 when they managed to beat the mighty US team in the quarter. Though the Olympic champion and title-holder US team changed a bit since Tokyo, they were still too strong for the Spanish and won 13-8 in the re-match of the Olympic final.

The remaining three semi-final spots were all booked by Europeans – in two cases it couldn’t have happened in the other way, Italy had an easy job against France (17-7) and the Netherlands beat Greece in a game which became surprisingly lopsided at the end (12-7). Host Hungary and Australia produced the biggest fight of the quarters, the Magyars enjoyed a giant push from the home crowd and clinched it with 7-6.