Synchronising long-distance plans

One of the major talking points in Beijing was the rift between Britain’s boy wonder Tom Daley and his synchronised diving partner, Blake Aldridge.

The two argued in between dives in the 10m synchro Olympic final and their performance suffered.

In short, there was no synchronicity. If two people are not on the same wavelength out of the pool, how are they meant to be mirror images of each other when they plunge from the diving board?

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Nowhere is that understanding more acutely felt than at the City of Leeds Diving Club, home to six of the 11 divers that represented Great Britain in this summer’s world championships. For competing with and against each other are three of the four women who hope to represent their country in the 10m synchro event in London.

In the red corner is Rebecca Gallantree and Keighley’s Jenny Cowen.

In the blue corner is Leeds Met graduate Sarah Barrow and her partner Tonia Couch – who just so happens to train over 300 miles away in Plymouth.

No matter, because the duo had the edge over Gallantree and Cowen in Shanghai and finished a highly-creditable fourth in the world final.

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Surprisingly in a discipline where synchronicity is paramount, the Olympic medal contenders spend less than 50 per cent of their time training together.

“Tonia training in Plymouth actually works for us,” says 23-year-old Barrow, whose achievement was all the more creditable given the back injuries she has suffered in recent times.

“Synchro is about training individually, you have to do your own dives and although you compete together, you have to make sure your own dive is really good to get the individual points.

“We come together as much as possible, we’re headed to a three-week training camp in Australia where we’ll train every day together, plus we’ll do the same at the nationals in January.

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“But we’ve got our own coaches and there’s no point switching around what works for us individually.

“We’re naturally synchronised and we don’t have to actually work on our synchronicity. If our individual dives are really good we’ll work well together.

“We’re a very good partnership anyway. I’ve known her since I was seven going back to gymnastics together and I used to train with her down in Plymouth.

“We’re very good friends and our partnership is going really well.”

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Training at the John Charles Aquatic Centre with people she is competing against for an Olympic berth is easier than it sounds. For a successful environment has been fostered at the club, which could persuade Barrow to continue living and training in Leeds after the Olympics.

As well as the 10m synchro – which she won a silver in at the 2008 World Cup meeting in Sheffield – she hopes to contest the individual 10m platform event at London 2012.

Barrow was present at the John Charles last week for the visit of Sebastain Coe, which attracted world-wide media interest.

“BBC China are here because the divers are using this pool for their London training camp,” said Barrow. “It’s great for the city of Leeds. They’re our big rivals, but unfortunately we won’t be able to spy on them because our base will be in Southend.”

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