Experience tells as Reid ends long wait

Grace Reid ended Scotland’s 60-year wait for a diving gold by winning the women’s one metre springboard.

On Wednesday James Heatly became the country’s first diving medal winner since his grandfather, the late Sir Peter Heatly, in 1958, in the equivalent men’s event.

And yesterday Reid won with a score of 275.30 points, comfortably ahead of the two Australians in second and third.

Reid, competing at her third Commonwealth Games after making her debut in Delhi aged 14, said: “I just loved every second of that. That was unbelievable.

“My primary goal was to go out and actually enjoy what I do, so job done as far as I’m concerned.

“Seeing as this was my third Commonwealth Games, I actually came in with quite a lot of pressure on my shoulders.

“I haven’t been sleeping and eating as much as normal because I have been really nervous. Experience came into play and I went into autopilot.”

Reid is back in action today in the three metre springboard event.

Tom Daley landed his fourth Commonwealth Games gold.

The 23-year-old partnered Dan Goodfellow in the men’s synchronised 10 metre platform, with whom he won Olympic bronze in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Scots Heatly and Lucas Thomson were solid across all six dives and finished fifth.

Daley is widely expected to retire after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, when he hopes to end his so-far elusive gold medal bid, so competing at Birmingham 2022 may be unlikely.

He said: “Two days ago I was not sure if I was going to be able to compete with my hip.

“I was nearly pulled out of the competition for safety reasons.

“You can’t go up on 10m with a hip that doesn’t really function all that well.

“That’s why this medal means so much because I really put everything into that synchro competition to get to the start line.”

Olympic champions Jack Laugher and Chris Mears of England won the men’s synchronised three metre springboard event.

The victory saw Laugher complete a Gold Coast hat-trick with his fifth Commonwealth title.

Grace Reid enjoys her time on the podium after winning Scotland’s first diving gold medal for 60 years. Picture: PA.