Golden double for GB

Olympic champion Jack Laugher completed a golden diving double for Great Britain at the European Championships in Edinburgh yesterday.

Laugher came from behind to clinch the men’s one metre springboard title after teenagers Lois Toulson and Eden Cheng had claimed a surprise victory in the women’s 10m synchro.

Toulson, 19, and 15-year-old Cheng pulled off a superb final dive to move up from bronze medal position and eclipse Russia’s Ekaterina Beliaeva and Iuliia Timoshinina who had to settle for silver.

It was a stunning performance from the pair who were teaming up together for only the second time at an event which also marked Londoner Cheng’s senior Great Britain debut.

Success for Laugher, who won synchro gold with Chris Mears at Rio 2016, was more predictable but equally hard-fought as he edged home over silver medallist Giovanni Tocci of Italy.

Scotland’s James Heatly delighted the home fans by taking the bronze medal.

Heatly won a historic bronze at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in the same event, only the second Scot to win a diving medal after his grandfather Sir Peter Heatly won gold in 1958.

“It’s amazing,” said Cheng, who took up the sport after being inspired during London 2012, and is still in the process of completing her GCSEs at school in Dulwich.

“Just to think that last year I did my first senior international for Great Britain, and now I’m standing here at the senior Europeans.”

Chang and Toulson started badly but benefited from poor final dives from both the Russian and German teams, with successive final efforts of 69.12 enough to edge them home.

Laugher also struggled to assert his authority until a top-scoring third dive of 74.80 lifted him clear of his rivals and justified his status as the heavy precompetition favourite.

Laugher, who is due to team up with Mears later this week, said: “With two events to go, it is a really good way for me to kick off these championships.

“It was not my best performance and not as good as the Commonwealth Games, but I am happy to come out on top again.”