Commonwealth Games bronze was a 'bonus' for Luton diver Amy Rollinson

Luton diver Amy Rollinson admitted her superb bronze medal at the recent Commonwealth games was a real ‘bonus’ achievement.

The 18-year-old had been using the prestigious event in Birmingham last month mainly to gain experience in major competitions following the injury and illness that she had suffered in the build-up.

Entered into the Women’s 1m Springboard, Rollinson led the way after the first dive before slipping to sixth at the halfway point.

However, a well-executed final dive helped her sneak into the podium positions as her two-and-a-half piked forward somersault scored a trio of 7.5s to win the bronze medal with a total of 272.00 points, fending off competition from Scotland's defending champion Grace Reid, who placed fourth with 268.15.

Gold went to Mia Vallee of Canada with 291.85 points, as Australia's Brittany O'Brien scored 279.60 to take the silver, but speaking to Swim England Diving, Rollinson, whose lead-up to the Games was severely disrupted, said: “It’s amazing because I’ve not had the best preparation.

“I sprained my ankle about three, four weeks ago and then I got Covid as soon as I got back from the World Championships.

“I had a week off and then I was back training to try to get back to normal. I was not doing hurdles for two weeks.

“I’ve been starting gradually doing them and it is just about building the confidence to land on my ankle again, because it’s the ankle that I land on that I sprained.

“I was going to change one of my dives three days ago because I wasn’t as confident on the hurdle, luckily it worked.

“I was turning up here for some experience because it’s my first major Games and third proper international ever.

“This (bronze medal) is a bonus. If I got one, I got one, but I was not expecting one at all.”

Rollinson also praised the crowd inside the Sandwell Aquatics Centre for their support in making her success possible.

When talking to BBC Sport, she added: “I was just expecting to turn up and have a bit of experience in an individual event, because I have only ever done two proper internationals, let alone an individual senior event, so to get this is crazy.

"I genuinely think the crowd helped. Just standing on the board it's so nice to hear so many people cheering for you, trying to get you to do well.

"It's been hard the past few weeks trying to train and deal with everything so it's just nice to come away with something."

Rollinson came so close to securing a first senior international medal as a pairing with Desharne Bent-Ashmeile in the Women’s 3m Synchro at the LEN European Aquatics Championships held in Italy recently too.

With their forward 2 1/2 somersaults 1 twist pike (5152B) in the penultimate round breaking 60 points, they finished just 0.30 points off the medals in fourth, pipped to the bronze medal by the Swedish pairing of Emilia Nilsson and Elna Widerstorm.

Reflecting on the performance, Amy said: "It's just us getting used to diving outdoors.

“We're still getting used to diving together and getting used to seeing what each other are going to be like in competition.

“I feel like the whole thing has just been such a good experience, such a good learning curve.

"Getting used to completely different surroundings, everything being nothing like we're usually used to.

"It's been amazing to be around everything.”