Team GB trampoline duo Katherine Driscoll and Laura Gallagher reached the final of the women's synchronised event at the European Games on Friday thanks to a confident display at the National Gymnastics Arena in Baku.
The pair finished in fifth place overall in qualifying, scoring a combined total of 83.8 for their two routines. They will be back in action in the final on Sunday.
Driscoll and Gallagher's progress was even more impressive due to the fact that they were performing in the event together for the first time.
Sports Mole chatted to them after the results were in to get their reaction.
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Kat, how are you feeling after that?
Driscoll: "Really good, really pleased. I'm proud of Laura coming out and delivering two solid routines after a disappointing individual performance (Gallagher failed to qualify for the individual final earlier in the week, while Driscoll made it through). It was really positive and it was just nice to do something as a team here. We've got really close doing this event.
"Performance-wise, we scored the highest score that I've ever had in the synchronised event in the first routine, and it's the first time that we've competed together, so that was a shock. We then had to re-focus [for the second routine] and not get too carried away [with our first].
"We're really pleased to have made the final. We didn't know what to expect. We haven't been training at home; we've been concentrating on individual because it's individual in the Olympic Games and we don't train synchronised at home anymore, so it's a bit 'see how it goes'."
Laura, how about you?
Gallagher: "From my perspective I'm really grateful and honoured to be competing with Kat because she's been amazing since my individual. I was absolutely gutted about that. I've never competed like that before. I was ultra-nervous [before going out there today], so I'm just so glad that Kat was there to help me get through that."
It must be pleasing to have recovered so well after the disappointment of not reaching the individual final...
Gallagher: "I've been out for a long time through injury, this is my second competition back, so it's quite a massive stage. I definitely let it get to me on Wednesday and maybe I wasn't quite ready for it, but training has been fine and it's good to take something positive away from this competition and just to show to myself personally that I can do it in an arena like that. It meant even more to do it as a team."
What are your expectations now that you're through to the final?
Gallagher: "We've got no expectations for synchro! Like Kat said, we don't train at home and it's out first ever competition together."
Driscoll: "We're doing pretty simple routines, so it's not competitive difficulty-wise. In synchro you never know..."
Gallagher: "It's not high difficulty because we don't train for it."
What are your plans between now and the final?
Gallagher: "Well, it's been quite a long week! With illnesses and things..."
Driscoll: "I didn't have a very good day yesterday. I spent last night in isolation because I had a stomach bug, so we're going to rest and recuperate, I think!"
Jack Prescott
