Aquatics

Lobb and Dixon impress on second day on National Diving Cup in Plymouth

p1030107 Life Centre Diving pool

COUSINS Shanice Lobb and Matthew Dixon impressed on the second day of the National Diving Cup in Plymouth.

Former Devonport High School for Girls pupil Lobb, who has recently moved to London, won silver medal in the women’s platform final, beating Olympian Lois Toulson in the process.

With last year’s champion Tonia Couch sitting out the individual event, having competed in two synchro events the day before, the 2017 title went to Southampton’s Scottish diver Gemma McArthur, who scored 310.80 points.

Lobb was consistent all the way through the final and finished with a score of 304.80.

Third-placed went to Southampton’s Emily Martin with 303.70.

Toulson, who won two synchro gold medals on Friday, had a disappointing event finishing in fifth with 281.65. She had finished third last year behind Couch and Sarah Barrow.

p1030139 Sarah BarrowBarrow, who retired after last summer’s Olympic Games, was at the Life Centre on Saturday and received a special honour, presented by national performance director Alexei Evangulov, for her long and successful international career.

Meanwhile, European junior champion Dixon opened his National Cup campaign with an encouraging men’s synchro display with new partner Noah Williams.

The pair were the only competitors in the event, with Olympic bronze medallists Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow sitting out, but they produced an impressive score of 391.86 points.

That score was more than Daley and Goodfellow had collected last year to win the same title and came despite only having a few training sessions together.

Dixon will compete in the men’s platform event on Sunday, along with fellow Plymouth divers Aidan Heslop and Alfie Brown.

Heslop, Brown and Alex Kostov took part in a highly-competitive three-metre event on Saturday.

Kostov just missed out on reaching the final, finishing 10th in the preliminaries.  Heslop was 17th overall and 14th British athlete, with Brown 21st overall and 17th Brit.

Fellow Plymouth diver Cody Powell-Tuckett finished 12th in the women’s platform prelims.

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