Bronze Medal For Couch
The first event of the 2014 World Diving Series took place in Beijing, China.
Plymouth based GB duo Sarah Barrow and Tonia Couch where taking part in there first International competition since July last year. Preparation leading into the event had been challenging with Couch dislocating her left knee in January and the pair had only started working together a few weeks before leaving for the Beijing opener.
Sport South Devon managed to chat to Sarah in Plymouth before they both headed off. “As a synchro pair, we always like to medal but our minds have to be set on the process goals for each competition. I know both of us are really looking forward to kicking the season off”.
Barrow added “Considering Tonia dislocated her knee just over a month ago, training has been great. Tonia has been amazing at getting back to full fitness so quickly and I’m so happy to have her back training next to me”.
With a good 2013 behind her and confidence high, we asked Sarah what her thoughts where on the individual platform events for 2014. “My aims for the season in the individual competition is just to keep improving on those scores and personal bests. The last two events I have improved my scores by 5 points each time. If I keep that up then the medals will take care of themselves, its the same in the synchro”.
With the duo in good spirits they headed off for the opening competition.
Competition standard is always high in the World Series events, as its the best divers in the world. Each pair have 5 dives and the individual scores are totalled to give the pairs final overall score and ranking.
Barrow & Couch where in 3rd place with 1 dive remaining but the Malaysia pair managed to slip into the Bronze medal place by a single point, meaning the girls had to settle for 4th again.
In the individual 10m Platform event the pair where against each other in the semi finals. Couch took the 3rd and final place to qualify for the final.
In the final Couch performed fantastically bearing in mind the start to the year she had with her knee injury. Couch managed to finish 3rd beating the Canadian Roseline, to take home the Bronze medal.
After the events we managed to get a quick word with both Barrow & Couch.
“I was happy with how we dived in synchro”, Barrow said “we seem to get better throughout the season, so even though we finished in an agonising 4th, there is plenty more to come. Individually I was gutted not to be in the final, I dived so well up to my 4th dive and I even finished with a decent score. It just wasn’t to be this time”.
After her 3rd place in the individual competition Couch said “I was pleased with my first score of 341 in the prelim and making it into the final. I then stepped it up in the final with a score of 357. I’m over the moon to take the Bronze. I dived well in the synchro event but not my best. I’m still very happy with where we are at the beginning of the season”.
The GB pair now move onto Dubai and compete in the same events between 20th – 22nd March.
You can read Sarah’s Blog on the events exclusively with Sport South Devon.
