While Gladding reached her breakthrough final, most importantly she earned
Britain an extra place for the Olympics and boosted her own hopes of
completing a remarkable comeback from the horrific injury she suffered
almost a year ago to the day.
The City of Sheffield diver had to be saved from a pool at a Russian meeting
when she hit her head on the tower and plummeted unconscious into the water
during competition.
“It’s absolutely amazing. If someone had said to me 12 months ago that I would
be 10th at a World Cup I would have snapped their hand off,” she said.
“But even then I’m leaving here a little bit disappointed because two of my
best two dives were not quite right.
“I suppose that is a great place to be because 10th and a few mistakes in my
first World Cup final – I’m going to take the positives from that.”
Gladding is not assured an Olympic tracksuit just yet though, with places to
be decided at June’s British Championships in Sheffield.
Four years ago Gladding secured Britain’s place for Beijing only to then fail
to seal her own berth. And she will face stiff competition from Tonia Couch,
Stacie Powell and Sarah Barrow in arguably British diving’s most competitive
discipline.
“In our country which is great for British diving, women’s platform is so
strong,” she said.
“There’s a good few girls in there. That’s unfortunate for me, but fortunate
for Britain.
“I’m really fighting hard for this.”
Earlier, Jack Laugher served a reminder that Great Britain are not a one-man
team after storming into the semi-final of the three-metre springboard.
While all the focus of attention has been on Tom Daley, Laugher’s rapid rise
up the international ranks continued in a marathon preliminary round of 59
divers as he finished fifth with a score of 458.05.
That bettered the total he managed when finishing seventh at last July’s World
Championships, and after nailing his new reverse three-and-a-half somersault
– one of the hardest 3m dives – it proved he has the class to challenge for
an Olympic medal this summer.
“That’s my newest dive and it’s the biggest I do in the prelims. To have it go
so well in front of a home crowd is an absolutely amazing feeling,” Laugher
said.
“It’s quite a hard dive. It is the top-end athletes that do it. It felt so
good.
“Hopefully I can continue to do that for the Olympics.”
