Jack Laugher hopes to have done nan proud after third successive title
England’s Jack Laugher hoped to have done his grandmother proud after winning the one- metre springboard title for a third successive Commonwealth Games.
The 27-year-old had vowed to win gold in the memory of his grandmother Bernice, who lived her entire life in Sedgley and passed away recently.
And he duly did just that, overcoming a difficult start to finish the competition with three excellent dives and finish top of the leaderboard.
After only qualifying in fourth at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre, Laugher was in bronze medal position midway through the final.
But he then scored 79.90 with his fourth dive to move ahead of Australia’s Li Shixin, saving his best till last to register 80.85 in the sixth and final round to take the title by 10 points. Laugher’s England team-mate Jordan Houlden took bronze.
“This morning is proof that sometimes things can go wrong,” Laugher said.
“I think I came into it maybe not in the right frame of mind and feeling a little bit scared, but today I just did my normal thing and it worked out.
“It’s actually my lowest score I have done in three Commonwealths. I’m still doing really well, and I like being pushed all the way.
“My grandma unfortunately passed away a couple of months ago.
“She was fairly local but I was unable to attend her funeral due to the world championships, which was very sad, but I’m an athlete at the very top and the risk of Covid was just too high.
“Hopefully I have done her proud today. She was my biggest supporter.”
Kinver table tennis ace Charlotte Bardsley suffered disappointment as she was knocked out in the last-32 of the women’s singles at the NEC by India’s Reeth Tennison.
The 20-year-old, playing in her first Commonwealth Games, had progressed to the knockout stages of the competition with wins over Trinidad and Tobago’s Rheann Chung and Cyprus’ Foteini Meletie.
But she the experienced Tennison proved too strong.
Bardsley did bounce back to level at 1-1 after losing the first game but after going behind again, she let slip a five-point lead in the fourth game and never recovered, her opponent eventually going on to record a 4-1 victory.
Yet the day wasn’t all bad for Bardsley, as she and partner Tom Jarvis progressed to the last-16 of the mixed doubles, with a 3-2 win over Singapore’s Yew En Koen Pang and Xin Ru Wong.
