Olympics 2016: Couch and Toulson have closed the age gap and are heading to Rio in sync and on a high
At 26, Tonia Couch is feeling her age. When she took up diving aged 10, her synchro partner Lois Toulson had not even been born. And with a decade separating them, Couch says she is the “mum of the group” in the British team at the the European Aquatics Championships, which started today.
Thrown together at the start of the season with partner Sarah Barrow - who has since been omitted for the team for the Europeans at the Olympic pool in London with a shin problem - it proved to be an inauspicious start.
“I wouldn’t say it was horrendous,” Couch explains of her early dives off the 10metre platform with her 16-year-old partner.
“But it wasn’t natural and you wouldn’t have thought much would happen that quickly.”
But the partnership has blossomed to the extent they go into the event ranked No1 in Europe and third in the world this season. Of the change, Couch says: “You just get on with it and I’m easy-going so I don’t worry about things too much.
“But it must be hard for Sarah to watch. I’m always there for her and it hasn’t affected our friendship.
“She’s kind enough to send a text wishing me good luck before each event and that can’t be easy for her.”
It was alongside Barrow that Couch finished fifth at London 2012 but it is with Toulson that she will almost certainly compete at the Rio Olympics this summer and bid to end a 56-year wait for an Olympic diving medal for a British woman.
With the Olympics following the Europeans, Couch claims it “should be the best year of my life”.
Already, she appears to be in the form to make that statement come true. At her last World Series event, in Kazan, Russia, she finished with a silver medal in the individual event.
Regarding her upturn in fortunes, she says: “I can’t explain it. I’ve not changed a thing. I’ve just tried to stay positive and have good thoughts. If I’m happy in life, I’m happy competing and that reflects in my diving. I’m just at my peak.”
Team GB Rio Oympics 2016 Kit designed by Stella McCartney
Couch, who speaks as rapidly as she spins in the air off the board, says: “I love it up there. Sure, it’s edgy and it’s scary but I enjoy it and thankfully for whatever reason I’ve never really been injured.”
Britain’s last female diving Olympic medallist
Liz Ferris was the last British woman to win an Olympic diving medal, sealing bronze in the 3m springboard competition at the 1960 Games.
But she became better known in her retirement for her research and studies towards achieving gender equality in sport but also sports medicine and anti-doping.
It resulted in her winning the inaugural British Olympic Association lifetime achievement award in 2011, a year before her death.
She was a founding member of the International Olympic Committee’s Women in Sport commission and helped launched the World Olympians Association and the British Olympians Club.
The Plymouth diver makes no secret of the fact she aspires to double gold in London - in the 10m platform and in the synchro event. “I’ve usually gone into the event as the top European but I’ve never won a medal,” she says.
“It’s obviously what I’m aiming for both here and in Rio.”
She forewarns that a large number of friends and families - “they’re each as loud and mad as each other” - will help create an atmosphere reminiscent of London 2012 when the competition gets under way.
But the event is very much a springboard to the Olympics later this summer when she will face a dominant Chinese contingent.
“Their national championships are probably tougher than the Olympics, such is the competition there which is crazy to think,” she adds.
“And I’m always blown away by them… even now. But they’re all human so that means they’re all beatable.”
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