Droitwich Sport

Daley through to synchro final

© Press Association 2011

11:48am Thursday 23rd February 2012

Tom Daley did enough to progress to tonight's platform synchro final at the FINA World Cup on his return to competition following his public feud with British Swimming performance director Alexei Evangulov.

Daley and experienced team-mate Peter Waterfield showed signs of rustiness in their first competition since finishing sixth at last July's World Championships as they relied on an impressive last dive to win through to the 12-team final.

Evangulov warned Daley last week that he faced missing an Olympic medal if he did not cut down his media commitments, while the Russian also claimed the former world champion's Chinese rivals trained "three times harder".

Daley's management team later denied those assertions in a statement released on his behalf, but he has the chance to let his diving do the talking at this week's test event at the Olympic Aquatics Centre.

With Waterfield the teenager did little to dispel Evangulov's comments this morning, though, as the cobwebs of their long break were evident.

"It wasn't our best performance by any means," Daley said.

"But the thought that we dived like that and finished sixth and qualified for the final is comforting.

"We know that we have to step it up a lot in the final."

In this afternoon's session Becky Gallantree and Hannah Starling will attempt to book Great Britain two Olympic places in the 3m springboard.

The pair need to claim a top-18 finish to remain in contention to go to the Games in the individual event.

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