Spendolini-Sirieix and Toulson fight back for bronze

Tasked with maintaining the best ever start Great Britain’s diving team has made to an Olympic Games, Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and Lois Toulson made it three medals from three events for Team GB at Paris 2024.

The pair came into the contest with firm medal credentials having made history in Fukuoka last summer when they claimed British diving's first Worlds medal in a women's event by taking synchro silver from the platform - and they were in similarly impressive form at February’s Doha world championships to back that up with bronze.

Consistently solid with their opening two required dives, Andrea and Lois positioned themselves second on the leader board with three rounds to go.

Their grip on a medal spot slipped back in the third round after slightly off-sync effort dropped the British pair to fifth, but they responded brilliantly to land an Inward 3½ Somersaults Tuck (407C) for 69.12 points in the penultimate round to keep within touch of the medal positions.

The final dive of Spendolini-Sirieix and Toulson’s list was truly the highlight of their series – and with the judges awarding 77.76 points for the pair’s Back 2½ Somersaults 1½ Twists Pike (5253B) it took their total score up to 304.38 overall.

With no British women having won an Olympic diving medal for 64 years prior to Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen’s opening day bronze, the eyes of Andrea and Lois began to well up with happy tears as they realised the same dream just four days later – with the final round of dives only seeing the dominant gold medal Chinese pairing and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea duo bettering their final tally.

“We knew our last two dives were the hardest degree of difficulty so we knew if we put them down we’d be back up towards the top so we never gave up or thought it’s over, we really kept pushing,” said Toulson of their battling attitude.

“I’ve been diving for 17 years now and this is my third Olympics so my parents and family have been with me all through that. I knew going into this competition it’s probably the best opportunity I have of getting an Olympic medal here with Andrea, so having them in the crowd and being able to watch it I can’t wait to put my medal over their neck and enjoy it with them.”

Speaking of the bond the pair have formed since coming together for the first time as a diving partnership at the 2022 European Championship in Rome, Spendolini-Sirieix added:

“I’m proud to represent Great Britain alongside Lois. I feel like I’ve grown not just as an athlete but as a person in this partnership – she’s taught me a lot and I feel like the relationship we’ve grown to can’t be described by this medal but I love training and diving together.

“I was disappointed more than worried [after our third round dive] because I knew we could bring it back, but we gave it our all and now we have a medal.

“Just having family here and doing it alongside Lois is so much sweeter. There is no amount of ‘thank you’s’ that can repay the sacrifices my parents have made and what they’ve done, but I hope this is a starting point to saying thank you.”

Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and Lois Toulson will resume their Olympic competition in the Women’s 10m Platform on Monday 5th August, while you can find details of all the upcoming aquatics action from Paris 2024 through our What’s On? Page.

Where can I watch?

The BBC will be covering the majority of the Games across BBC One and Two, the BBC Red Button and BBC iPlayer. You can find their coverage schedule by clicking here.

Discovery+/Eurosport will also be broadcasting every minute of the Olympic Games but these channels require a subscription fee.