Harper & Mew Jensen win Team GB’s first Paris medal

Divers Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen won Team GB’s first medal of the Paris 2024 Olympics with a dramatic bronze in the women’s synchronised 3m springboard.

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 looked set for bronze at worst, but a horrible mistake on their final dive meant they failed to overhaul Harper and Mew Jensen.

Londoner Mew Jensen, competing at her second Olympics, had struggled with a back injury in the run-up to the Games which limited her to just a month’s preparation, and her stunned expression soon turned to tears of joy after the Australian error.

“Right place, right time,” Britain’s Olympic silver medallist Leon Taylor said on BBC TV.

“That’s what happens in diving. What an incredible competition.”

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.

Harper and Mew Jensen were second after the opening round of dives but slipped down the standings after small errors in their next two efforts.

That left them in sixth, but only nine points separated them from the bronze medal position before a strong fourth dive moved the British pair back into contention.

Harper and Mew Jensen followed their score of 71.10 with 70.68 on their final dive, but that only gave them an advantage of 58.68 over Australian pair Anabelle Smith and Maddison Keeney – the world silver medallists.

On their final dive, Smith almost slipped from the board, doing well to even make it into the pool, and they scored just 48.60 to finish fifth.

“Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t, but it would be usually in training,” Commonwealth silver medallist Tonia Couch told BBC TV. “I did not expect that.

“They probably thought they didn’t need to do much to get a medal. So much could have been going through their minds and unfortunately for them they messed up.”