Grace Reid homes in on more European medals after synchro

Grace Reid and Ross Haslam show off their silver medals just a few months after becoming a team. Pic: PA

The 22-year-old – who now trains in London, but learnt her trade with the Edinburgh Diving Club – finished second to Germany along with Sheffield’s Ross Haslam in the 3m mixed synchro event.

The Great Britain pairing have not been together that long, but did win a bronze medal on the World Cup circuit in China earlier in the year.

And in this straight-to-final event in Edinburgh they started off well, being joint leaders after round one of dives, leading after round two and being second after round three.

In the fourth round the German pairing put down a score of 74.40 points and when Great Britain could only respond with 66.60 it put Lou Massenberg and Tina Punzel in the box seat.

They went on to win gold (313.50 from five dives) with Reid and Haslam second on 308.67 and Ukraine third on 291.81.

Reid, the former George Watson’s College pupil who grew up diving in this pool, admitted there were a couple of errors in their programme which stopped them winning gold.

However, given the hastiness which they were put together only a few months ago when her regular partner Tom Daley took a step back from the sport, silver was a cracking result

And it has left Reid in a great head space ahead of her women’s 3m event on Saturday and the women’s 3m synchro with Katherine Torrance on the final day of the meet on Sunday.

“It has been really good to be home and that has really helped me prepare for my events this week,” Reid said.

“It’s just those familiar faces, the Scottish accent, it’s so comforting to have those little things around – even things like the food we are eating is familiar and it all helps.

“Obviously the spectators have just been fantastic too and they were cheering for us like mad, it was really special.

“Whether it’s pressure or whether it’s an advantage having lots of people expecting you to do well is totally based on perceptions, but I think coming into that this event and hearing those shouts - particularly before our last dive - well I let that help me and lift me rather than seeing it as a burden.

“We know we did not have a perfect competition to get the silver, but we had a really good one and got a personal best.

“Obviously there are things we want to improve – that third dive, maybe the fourth as well – and all of that will come as we train and compete more  together.

“This medal will definitely give me a boost going into the weekend, but each event is separate so I’ve still got a way to go and will be training hard in the next couple of days.”

After her final competition on Sunday Reid is hoping to get to see some of the Festival, stating: “I would like to go and see like 18 shows and I’ve got plenty of time for that when I’m done – I’ve got a job to do first.”

Meanwhile, Haslam, 20, praised Reid for helping him settle into the pairing and said: “It is a bit of pressure taking over from Tom Daley because Tom Daley is, well, Tom Daley. Everyone knows who is and talks about him and what he has done.

“However, working with Grace has just been really good, being here in Scotland with her in her home city has made for a really nice vibe and I think we feed off each other.”

Next up for Reid is the women’s 3m prelims on Saturday morning when 22 divers will compete for 12 places in the final later in the day.gR