DINGLEY SO CLOSE
Ireland diver misses out on bronze medal
OLIVER Dingley put on a show in Edinburgh yesterday and came agonisingly close to his — and Ireland’s — first international diving medal.
A gutsy last dive in the morning session earned a place in the 1M Final but a muchimproved performance in the afternoon saw the Rio 2016 Olympian scoring 385.65, over 50 points more than his morning effort. He was in contention throughout, eventually missing out on a medal by just six points to Britain’s James Heatly who took Bronze (391.70).
A disappointed Dingley, 25, took the positives from his performance when he spoke afterwards. ‘Yeah I’m pleased but it’s also hard to swallow. It’s probably one of the hardest results in my diving career, I’m gutted, but [I have] so many positives to take.’
Dingley’s main event, the 3m dive, takes place tomorrow. So far this year he’s finished seventh at the FINA World Cup in June and secured a place on the exclusive 2019 FINA Diving World Series (3M), reserved for the top eight divers in the world.
‘There’s going to be some fantastic divers in there,’ he said. ‘Europe has the most depth in 3M diving so its going to be fun to get out there for hopefully another parade in the final and you never know.’
Meanwhile in the pool, Darragh Greene, competing in his third semi-final this week, matched his personal best time of 27.44 to finish sixth in the first semi-final of the 50m Breaststroke and moved up to 12th overall.
The National Centre Dublin swimmer, who was the first Irishman to break a minute in the 100m Breaststroke on Friday, had swum the 100m and 200m Breaststroke semi-finals earlier this week.
It’s another busy day for team Ireland in the pool with the last individual swims of the meet taking place. Mona McSharry swims in the 50m Breaststroke, Calum Bain and Robbie Powell in the 50m Freestyle and Brendan Hyland in the 100m Butterfly.
In the diving pool, 16-yearold Tanya Watson, who secured an Irish place at the World Youth Olympic Games for the first time last week, will get her first taste of senior international diving when she goes into the preliminaries of the Platform (10M) event.