English pair bounce back for gold
Into the water and out of a shadow. Matty Lee and his partner noah Williams won a fine gold medal for England via some considerable pain and difficulty in the 10m synchro diving last night.
As a home pairing, and with Lee (right) the olympic champion from his previous work with tom
Daley, they were the favourites and led through three of the six rounds. But the drama came in the fourth, when Williams suffered severe cramp during his dive. that simultaneously allowed the Canadian duo of Rylan Mackenzie Wiens and nathan Milner Zsombor-Murray to snatch the top spot and also raised questions over whether Williams was fit enough to get it back.
His limp from the pool and discomfort in then climbing the stairs pointed towards a campaign going south, but an exceptional fifth effort returned the English to the front and they closed well with a forward four-and-a-half somersaults tuck to win with 420.78 points, 15.93 clear of the Canadians.
‘After the fourth dive I pretty much couldn’t walk,’ said Williams. ‘It isn’t serious — I think it was cramp and it might be adrenaline. I needed a massage between dives.’
For Lee, the win added the Commonwealth crown to the European and olympic titles he won with Daley. Inevitably and perhaps unfortunately those victories were seen predominantly in the context of Daley, but in his absence Lee drew his share of the spotlight. ‘this is why I do diving,’ said Lee, 24. ‘In the Commonwealth Games I have never done exactly what I wanted to do. I missed out in 2014, had a rubbish Games in 2018 but we have just smashed the synchro and got gold.
‘You don’t get a chance to do this very often but we are lucky to get a gold in front of a home crowd. I’m ecstatic.’ the second English pairing of Ben Cutmore and Kyle Kothari were fourth.
Earlier, Jack Laugher won his seventh Commonwealth gold in the 3m springboard synchro with his partner with Ant Harding. It followed 24 hours after Laugher, the 2016 olympic champion, won the 1m springboard event.