Britons made the medal podium at an opening World Aquatics Diving World Cup of the season in Montreal that was dominated by China.
Chinese athletes won all nine finals at the venue which hosted competition at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but Britain’s Paris 2024 bronze medallists Anthony Harding and Jack Laugher got in on the action as they finished third in the men’s 3m synchro.
Their achievement was matched in the men’s 10m synchro by team-mates Ben Cutmore and Euan McCabe took bronze.
Harding and Laugher trailed Canada by 1.17 points with one dive to go but eventually displaced Paul Carson and Nathan Zsombor-Murray by 4.11 points, finishing on 393.66.
The podium order exactly reflected the result at last year’s World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, with victory going to China’s Wang Zongyuan and Zheng Jiuyuan on 461.37, and Mexico’s Osmar Olvera Ibarra and Juan Manuel Celaya taking silver 19.74 behind.
Laugher, who won 3m synchro gold with Chris Mears at the Rio 2016 Games, told World Aquatics he had only been training for about two weeks, explaining that he had had to take a six-week break to allow two bruised bones in his left wrist to heal.
Commenting on what was his 53rd World Aquatics medal, Laugher added: “They’re all hung up at home.
“I’ve got some really nice metal bars that I put them on. I cherish every one that I get.”
Cutmore and McCabe finished on 399.12 in the men’s 10m synchro, just behind Mexico’s silver medallists Kevin Berlin Reyes and Randal Willars Valdez on 400.41.
Gold went to China’s Renjie Zhao and Zhihao Yang on 469.23.
Two European divers finished one place off the podium.
Italy’s European women’s 10m platform champion placed fourth with 333.40 in a competition won by China’s 15-year-old Linjing Jiang on 428.10, with her 13-year-old compatriot Jiaxi Cui taking silver on 370.40.
While in the men’s 10m platform fourth place went to Ukraine’s 16-year-old Mark Hryrtsenko on 462.20 in an event where gold went to China’s Yuming Bai on 543.55.
Twenty-year-old European champion and world silver medallist Oleksii Sereda, with whom Hrystsenko finished sixth in the men’s 10m synchro, had to settle for sixth place in the individual competition, one place behind McCabe.
Britain’s Paris 2024 bronze medallists Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen finished seventh in the women’s 3m synchro, where victory went to China’s world champions Chen Jia and Chen Yiwen.
Chen Yiwen also won gold in the individual 3m springboard, in which she won world gold last year, with Switzerland’s European women’s 3m springboard champion Michelle Heimberg finishing sixth.
Following the decision to cancel the planned second leg of the World Diving Cup, which was to have been held at Zapopan, Mexico from March 5 to 8, due to concerns over travel safety, the Montreal opener thus became the sole qualifying event for the concluding Super Final in Bejing from May 1 to 3.
Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
