Team GB added another diving medal to its haul from the European Games tonight as Katherine Torrance topped the podium in the women's 3m springboard event.
The 16-year-old had been left disappointed with her performance in the 1-metre event on Friday but put in an assured performance on the higher board, edging out Russia's Ekaterina Nekrasova with the final jump of the competition.
Sports Mole caught up with Torrance moments after her victory to see how the news was settling in.
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You're a lot happier than the last time I saw you, Katherine!
"I'm over the moon at the moment. Especially like you said, after Friday and not a great 1-metre event, to come around and do this, I'm feeling great!"
As you went up for your final dive, were you aware of the rankings and what score you needed to get for gold?
"I try not to focus on the rankings but obviously when you look at the board for your scores, you can see it, so I knew me and the Russian girl were only about three points apart. When I was on the board I was trying to think 'just keep calm and nail it like you can'. So I knew we were close but I didn't want to focus on it too much."
You've had a good day overall - you finished first in the prelims earlier. That must have given you a lot of confidence coming into tonight.
"It does give you confidence but it does also pile on a bit of pressure because everyone's like 'if you come first in the prelims, you'll come first in the final'. But as you've seen, other rankings can go wherever they like. So it does give you confidence but it does also make you a bit more nervous."
Well that applies to your teammate Lydia (Rosenthall) tonight - she finished second in the prelims and wound up eighth...
"Yeah, I'm gutted, because I like to see my teammates succeed as much as I do."
As you mentioned, we spoke on Friday and you said you were pretty disappointed. What did you do between then and now to perk yourself up?
"1-metre has never been my best main board, so I tried not to focus too much on the negatives on it and just think 'Sunday's a new day, it's a new board, everything's great'. I'm not going to get many opportunities like this, especially if the next one is in four years - I'm not going to be a junior any more - so I was thinking I should just take this opportunity, dive like I do, and just take it all in and enjoy it more. I think because I enjoyed it more I dived better because I was more relaxed."
The diving's all over tonight. How much longer are you in Baku for and what will you be doing?
"We leave Monday evening I think, so not long. Tonight we're going to go to the food hall, eat everything and then just go mental! I'm going to miss this place, I'm going to have such competition blues afterwards."
How have you coped with the heat? I've been really struggling.
"We've just not gone outside and tried to stay in as much as we can. We've gone out now and again to get a bit of fresh air but our coaches have recommended us not to go outside because of the heat. I'm prone to burning all the time, so I've gone outside fully clothed all the time!
Neil Wilkes
