Anabelle Smith has described how she “screamed underwater” after being responsible for the calamitous final dive that cost her and diving partner Maddison Keeney Australia’s first medal of the Paris Olympics.
The tears flowed after the shattered pair delivered a shocking fifth and final effort in the women’s synchronised 3m springboard event on Saturday.
It dropped them from third to fifth, just when it seemed they were set to even grab silver on the opening afternoon of the Games at the Paris Aquatics Centre.
The normally trusty double act, regular podium placers at major championships, made a hash of their last difficult dive – a two-and-a-half somersaults with one twist in pike.
It left 31-year-old Smith, in her fourth Games, blaming herself for a slip off the right edge of the board.
“Yeah, pretty brutal. I can’t change it now, so no point dwelling on it,” the Melburnian said, after the tears subsided.
“Really, that stuff happens. It happens to the best of the best, and unfortunately it was my day today. So got to not let that define me, though. We’ve done some pretty amazing things across our 10 years.”
Asked as if her heart had sunk as soon as she took off awkwardly from the right edge of the board, Smith smiled ruefully: “I screamed underwater – I was hoping the under-water cam wasn’t on. It’s just disappointing, very disappointing.”
Lying less than a point behind the eventual US silver medallists Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook (314.64 points) going into the last round, the Australians – who had delivered the second best dives in the two previous rounds – looked set to at least equal their Rio performance of eight years ago when they won bronze.
“I dunno,” shrugged Smith, when asked about the fail. “That’s diving – trying to control our bodies and spin lots of times on an uneven, very bouncy plank. Had a bad hurdle and landed on the side of the board, which obviously affects the rest of the dive. It’s just unfortunate.”
Hitting the pool well out of synch, they were awarded the worst score – 48.60 points – of the final round for a final tally of 292.20, dropping them behind Britain’s bronze medallists Yasmin Harper and Scarlet Mew Jensen and fourth-placed Italians Elena Bertocchi and Chiara Pellacani.
China’s world champions Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen (337.68) were again in a class of their own as they struck gold.
Perth’s Keeney, the 28-year-old three-time world champ, and Smith had won silver at the world championships in Doha and had expected to repeat the dose behind the dominant Chinese pair.
“Maddi and I put a lot of hard work into synchro obviously, and we had a lot of expectation from ourselves and obviously from other people as well,” said Smith.
“Obviously, it’s gonna hit me a bit after this, but I’ve still got to kick on, I’m not dying, so I’m alright.
“I just feel bad for letting the team down.”
