German joy as rainbow women find Diving gold

Baku, June 20, AZERTAC Great friends Saskia Oettinghaus and Louisa Stawczynski of Germany laughed, cried and hugged each other after taking gold in the women's synchronised 3m springboard at the Baku Aquatics Centre. The pair, wearing matching rainbow swimsuits, made a slow start to their medal challenge, but got stronger and stronger as it progressed. Any doubts about their abilities vanished when they recorded the best dive of the competition in the fourth round, scoring 67.20 for a reverse two-and-a-half somersault. They have only been together for a year and one lives in Rostock and the other in Dresden, so they meet to train only every three or four weeks. Out of that partnership a close friendship has blossomed between the two schoolgirls. "We haven't had many sessions together so it's pretty incredible really," said Stawczynski. "We were dreaming about it on the bus and now it's a reality. After the last dive we knew we could win it." The performance was enough to see off the Russian pairing of Elena Chernykh and Maria Polykova, and Ukrainians Marharita Dzhusova and Diana Shelestyuk who claimed the bronze.