Divers Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen won Team GB’s first medal on the opening day of the Olympics since 2004 with a dramatic bronze in the women’s synchronised 3m springboard in Paris.
The pair were in tears at the end of the competition as they snatched Britain’s first female diving medal at an Olympics for 64 years behind China and the United States.
They were sixth with two dives to go and fourth before the final dive but an excellent final effort moved them into third.
Australia still looked set for bronze at worst, but a horrible mistake on their final dive was greeted by gasps from the crowd at the Paris Aquatics Centre and they failed to overhaul Harper and Mew Jensen.
Londoner Mew Jensen, competing at her second Olympics, sustained a partial fracture in her back just three months ago which limited her to just a month’s preparation.
Her stunned expression soon turned to tears of joy after the Australian error.
“A month ago I didn’t think I would be here,” Mew Jensen, 22, said.
“To be up on the boards and to come away with that [bronze medal], I can’t imagine anything better.”
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Chester-born Harper, who turns 24 on Sunday, said: “It is all we have worked towards. To come away with the medal feels really, really amazing.”
Gold for world champions Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen was rarely in doubt in an impressive performance which sealed a sixth consecutive gold for China in this event.
America’s Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook took silver. (BBC)
