Watson Makes Her Mark in Europe

August 08, 2018

It was a day to remember for Irish diver Tanya Watson as the 16-year-old, making her senior international debut, placed 7th in the Platform Final at the European Championships in Edinburgh. 

Watson, who finished 7^th at the European Junior Championships in July, improved on this morning’s score of 233.15 by over 40 points to finish with 276.85; at one point the Southampton based diver was in 5^th place. She moved to 7^th after a 43.50-points dive in round 4 but showed brilliant resilience to score her highest points of 60.75 for her last dive, a forward three and a half somersault tuck, bettering this morning’s preliminaries score on the same dive by over 20 points. 

Speaking to RTE after the event Watson said ‘I’m really really happy with that performance, there’s a lot I can take from that, a lot of stuff I can improve, but I haven’t done a senior list for about a year now, so to be able to perform like that on the day I’m really chuffed’

Watson has been nominated to the Olympic Council of Ireland for a place at the World Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in October after she qualified a place for Ireland last month.

In Glasgow, swimming in her second semi-final of the week, Mona McSharry was unable to match her morning time of 31.09 in the semi-final, touching in 31.45 for 12^th place overall. The 17-year-old has also been nominated to the Olympic Council for the World Youth Olympic Games along with Robbie Powell (Athlone) and Niamh Coyne (National Centre Dublin)

Tomorrow will be the final day of action for both swimmers and divers at the European Championships. After a superb display on the boards on Tuesday where he placed 5^th in the 1M Final Oliver Dingley returns for the 3M Springboard.  The event will feature some of the world’s best divers including Rio 2016 Silver and Bronze medallists Jack Laugher (GB) and Patrick Hausding (Germany).

In Glasgow, Conor Ferguson, Darragh Greene, Brendan Hyland and Shane Ryan will be vying for a place in the 400m Medley Relay Final. Ryan and Hyland were part of the team that set the Irish Record of 3:36.61 at the 2017 World Championships in Budapest to place 16^th overall.

LEN European Swimming & Diving Championships, 2^nd - 12^th August 2018, Scotland:

Results Day 6 Preliminaries:

Day 7 Preliminary Schedule: