DIVING: Australian divers Samantha Mills and Esther Qin have once again underlined their Olympic medal potential, winning a bronze in the 3-metre synchro final at the Diving World Cup in Rio. 

Mills and Qin had already qualified a start for Australia in this year’s Olympics, after finishing third at last year’s World Championships.

The Australians have only finished outside of a medal in world-class competition on one occasion in the past two years.

Mills and Qin made a strong start to this morning’s final, sitting second after the opening dive, but then dropped back to fourth for the next three dives.

But while other combinations faltered, the Australians held their nerve to finish strongly to take the bronze.

Mills said there were times during this morning’s final when she felt things were not going well.

“I kind of was a bit upset,” Mills said.

“I didn’t think we were diving that well, the judges didn’t seem to like what we were doing.

“Our score was reasonable, but we’ve done better. Next time they better watch out, this will just make me more motiviated.”

Qin said it was exciting to get the chance to compete in the Olympic pool.

“This was a tough competition for us,” Qin said.

“It was such a good experience for us to get a chance to compete at this year’s Olympic venue.

“And we got a good chance to see how everyone else was going in an Olympic year.”

The result comes after Australia failed to qualify teams for the women’s platform synchro and the men’s 3-metre synchro on the opening day of the World Cup.

The men’s platform synchro team of Domonic Bedggood and James Connor finished tenth in the qualifying round of competition overnight, and will dive for the chance of Olympic qualification on Monday morning.

ROSS SOLLY FOR DIVING AUSTRALIA