First the high divers gave up a medal in the team competition, then Jette Müller lost bronze on the very last jump: At the start of the World Swimming Championships in Doha, the German divers narrowly missed the podium twice.
Lena Hentschel, Elena Wassen, Timo Barthel and Moritz Wesemann were 23.30 points short of the medal in the first final of the World Championships in Qatar, and only 3.45 points separated Müller from bronze after five rounds from the 1m board. “I’m rather disappointed, I still had room for improvement, so a medal would have been possible,” said the Rostock woman after fourth place with 253.70 points.
After two strong jumps at the start, Müller was even in second place, but then slipped. After her last jump she took bronze until the Egyptian Maha Eissa passed her as the last jumper. In the absence of the top Chinese favorites, gold in the non-Olympic discipline went to Australia’s Alysha Koloi ahead of Britain’s Grace Reid and Eissa, who won Egypt’s first World Cup medal in diving.
The team was also initially on course for a medal – thanks to Olympic bronze medalist Hentschel and European champion Wesemann with their jumps from the 3m board. Synchronized European champion Wassen and individual European champion Barthel slipped to fourth place after their individual jumps from the tower and were unable to catch up in the synchronized round.
The first gold medal at the Hamad Aquatic Center was won by the British team led by Olympic champion Tom Daley ahead of Mexico and Australia. The water jumping superpower China also decided not to take part in the team jumping event.