DIVER Tanya Watson made history in Tokyo today, as she became the first Irish female diver to compete at the Olympic Games. A superb performance from the 19-year-old today saw her qualify through to the semi-finals of the Women’s 10m Platform in 16th position with 289.4 points.
In golf meanwhile, at the close of play on day one of the women’s individual stroke play, Leona Maguire sits tied for 22nd on level par while Stephanie Meadow carded a 1-over par 72, and is tied 36th.
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DIVING
Diver Tanya Watson made history in Tokyo today, as she became the first Irish female diver to compete at the Olympic Games. A superb performance from the 19-year-old today – who qualified for Tokyo 2020 through World Rankings last May – saw her qualify through to the semi-finals of the Women’s 10m Platform in 16th position with 289.4 points. Tomorrow’s semi-final will see the top 18 scores from today’s 30 divers compete, with the top 12 from there contesting the final on Thursday.
Watson performed consistently across the five dives, which ranged in difficulty from 2.8 to 3.2. In the first dive, Watson performed a back 2 ½ somersaults, 1 ½ twists with a difficulty level of 3.2. Her score of 62.4 points set her up for the remainder of the session, ranking 13th at that early stage.
This was followed by a forward 3 ½ somersaults, a back 2 ½ somersaults and a reverse 2 ½ somersaults, where she held steady in rankings. Her final dive was an inward 3 ½ somersaults, which had a difficulty of 3.2 to finish out the preliminaries as the 16th ranked diver.
Speaking after her Olympic debut Watson said, “I feel great, and just excited to go out there again and do my dives and get through again tomorrow. My first dive was pretty good for me, everything was consistent, so all my dives were on the head. But I just need to work on tomorrow – my entries, there was some splash there which I would like to get rid of. My first, second, third, fourth, fifth dives, they were all consistent. So I’m really, really happy with that.”
Tomorrow the top 12 divers move to the finals, a realistic target for Watson on the back of today’s consistent performance.
“My plan into the semi-finals is that I personally want to enjoy it again. I did really good diving today, so I’m really excited to find that again. Also tomorrow, I want to work on my entries into the water.”
GOLF
At the close of play on day one of the women’s individual stroke play, Leona Maguire sits tied for 22nd on level par while Stephanie Meadow carded a 1-over par 72, and is tied 36th.
With a later tee-time than Maguire and in the peak of the afternoon heat, Meadow relied on her short game, saving par on two occasions on the front nine. Some loose iron shots led to two bogeys on the 10th and 11th holes and Meadow slipped to 3-over par. However, birdies on the 16th and 17th put her right back in the mix.
“I’m happy enough to make 2 birdies coming in, it makes a big difference,” reflected Meadow afterwards. “I wasn’t overly impressed with how my irons were today, but that’s okay, we’ll figure it out on the range and be ready to go again tomorrow.”
“3-over is a lot to come back from, 1-over is not so bad. I think it was just so hot out there I was trying to stay 1-shot at a time so I was just trying to grind through it, get finished and be okay when done. I think I had some good birdie opportunities and hit some good putt, so it was nice to see them go in.”
Meadow also represented Team Ireland alongside Maguire in Rio and is proud to return this time once again:“I mean, anytime you get to wear the Ireland uniform, on the first tee and they say, ‘‘representing Ireland, Stephanie Meadow’, it’s special. It gives you a little bit of butterflies. It’s not something I experience every week so I just have always wanted to make Ireland proud. Especially now with everything that’s gone on the last two years. I think everyone wants to do even better for everyone at home. It’s been great.”
Due to the poor weather forecast for the weekend, tournament organisers are considering alternatives to finishing the tournament on Saturday as planned. With the medical advisors’ input, it has been determined that playing more than 18 holes in one day is not possible and therefore the event may be reduced to 54 holes. Players will be notified after the close of round 2 tomorrow evening.
EQUESTRIAN
The running order for the equestrian Individual Show Jumping Final later today has also been confirmed. The final will take place from 11:00am (Irish time) today, and the athletes will go in reverse order from yesterday’s results. Cian O’Connor and Kilkenny (ISH) will be 6th to go, 25th into the ring will be Bertram Allen and Pacino Amiro (ISH), while Darragh Kenny and VDL Cartello will be second last (29th) into the ring.