VIS’ Laura Hingston has started her season on a high, collecting a silver medal at the FINA Diving Grand Prix in Kuala Lumpur for the Individual Women’s 10m Platform.
China’s Xu Yijin was too good, with a big score of 336.10 too hard for the VIS scholarship holder to catch, with her eventual score of 289.75 enough to secure the silver medal.
Although it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Hingston, injuring her arm days before leaving for competition, she still managed to put it all behind her and put points on the scoreboard in her season opener.
The program was action packed with prelims, semis and finals all on the same day an uncommon schedule for diving, with divers often given a couple of days break before coming out to compete in a final.
“I had to get through all round and knew I’d be doing a minimum of 15 dives on 10m, which is a really big day for any platform diver.” Hingston said.
With this in the back of her mind, after liaising with her coaching staff the VIS diver decided that she would go straight into the 10m competition without any practise dives. An idea that many thought was “crazy.”
“I knew this was the best decision, although it was far from an ideal situation.” She said.
“You never know what’s going to happen in a competition, so for me it’s important to be flexible and adapt to situations.”
A couple of her dives in the prelim were “rocky,” but after getting used to the new pool she started to find her bearings. Pulling out four solid dives in the semis, it was enough to qualify her a spot into the final.
With the finals at the end of an already large day, the Victorian Institute of Sport scholarship holder was feeling the bite, but says she was in a “really good mental space.”
“It was a really good lesson for me to learn,” she said.
“I obviously didn’t have a smooth week leading into comp but was able to pull through in the end with a good result.”
The Victorian Institute of Sport scholarship holder was pleased with the result and shocked with her season opener.
“The silver medal was a nice surprise, I was so focused on the process of each of my own dives that I didn’t even realise where I had finished.” Hingston said.
(Laura pictured with her silver medal after the ceremony)
She now joins fellow VIS diver, Anabelle Smith, as they continue their preparations for the Australian leg of the FINA Grand Prix on November 15-18 on the Gold Coast.
