Becky blog: A record-breaking performance

Our sponsored athlete, world champion diver Becky Gallantree, has just got back from a record-breaking display at the European Championships in London. Here, in her latest blog for us, she gives us a fascinating insight into how she had to bounce back from earlier disappointment during the event to put in one of her greatest ever performances.

After watching my teammates set Great Britain on course for its most successful ever European Championships with incredible performances all week, it was my turn to spring into action on the final weekend.

The 3m individual was first, where I was narrowly beaten to a medal by my British team mate, Grace Reid. I was actually fairly pleased with my performance, with just a couple of small mistakes on two of my dives, but those mistakes made all the difference when it came to medals. I can say with some certainty that 4th is an excruciatingly tough place to finish.

But, as many of you may know, my main event and focus for this year is the 3m synchro with my partner Alicia Blagg. I had less than 24 hours to pull myself back together, get over the disappointment and be raring to go the next day. So, I headed back to the hotel, had a quick debrief with my coach, Edwin Jongejans, allowed myself the next hour or so to think about the events of the day, then after dinner it was time to put the disappointment to the side and focus on resting up for the next day.

Despite the result of the previous day, I had really enjoyed competing in front of the home crowd in such a fantastic pool, so I was really excited about getting out there again. My best dives the previous day had been the ones that I also use in synchro, and I took a lot of confidence from that. Our competition was the very last one, and the crowd were pumped up after Tom Daley had just won the men’s 10m event. We actually started off a little shaky, with our first two, easier dives, not quite as good as we can do them. So we were playing a bit of catch up to the other teams after two rounds. Our third dive was good, although can still be better, but then our final two dives were spot on. We ended up finishing in second place, with a personal best score and a British record! As you can see from this video of the event, we were absolutely over the moon with that result. And to know that we can still do even better is a great feeling.

The next thing for me is the British Championships, which also incorporates the Olympic trials, on the 10th-12th June in Sheffield (there may still be some tickets available to buy here). The week after that the Olympic team will be officially announced, so keep your fingers crossed for me!