Plymouth’s Euan McCabe and coach Sally Freeman have just returned from the European Aquatics Championships held in Belgrade, with 107 athletes competing from 26 countries.
The results of the 14-day meet confirmed that the Great Britain team are a force to be reckoned with after placing at the top of the diving medal table and finishing second overall for the team trophy. After earlier success in the American Cup, McCabe once again teamed up with Ben Cutmore from Dive London for the 10m synchro.
The temperature throughout the week was high and during their event, it approached 37° which was a battle in itself, adding to the constant changes in wind, sun position, flying insects that all pose challenges in an outdoor competition.
After round two the pair were lying in first position and looked set for success. Over the next 4 rounds they dropped to sixth, moved up to fifth, back up to fourth but were determined to claw back points they battled on. Their gritty determination paid off and their final dive, which held the highest difficulty of all teams, proved to be the right choice and pushed them up into bronze medal position.
A fantastic first outing at senior European level for McCabe and full credit to his more experienced partner Cutmore who was superb all week in his other events and a credit to coach Stephen Hewat.
