NEW Southampton diver Blake Aldridge snatched Britain's first-ever World Junior Diving gold medal in dramatic fashion.

And he and Peter Waterfield brought home GB's best medal haul from these championships.

Between them, the pair - now training with national coach Lindsey Fraser at the Quays pool - won world gold, silver and bronze in the 16-18 years age-group at Pardubice in the Czech Republic, overcoming opposition from 30 nations.

Aldridge was second after eight of his nine dives in the ten-metre platform event but produced a spectacular last effort, the highest-scoring dive of the entire final, to triumph by eight points with a British junior record of 530.

Waterfield, who last month won a synchronised diving bronze in the senior European championships, this time took silver in the one-metre and bronze in the three-metre springboard events, both in GB junior records of 539.85 and 526.25 respectively.

In the one-metre, Waterfield and Russian rival Alexandr Dobsoskok were far head of the field - the bronze medallist trailing 60 points behind - and Waterfield missed gold by a tantalising three points.

This world medal haul follows the pair's success two weeks before at the European junior championships in Aachen. Waterfield (1m) and Aldridge (10m) both picked up silver medals there behind Dobroskok.

This string of successes marks a major step in the pair's development as world-class competitors - and there's no doubt the move to train at the Quays has been a factor.

Fraser's appointment as diving development officer at the Quays has enabled her to give up her job as a maths teacher so that Aldridge and Waterfield can train with her twice a day instead of just in the evenings.

The two divers now face four months' intensive training before travelling to Sydney for the World Cup in January.

They aim to state their case for a return trip in September to the Olympics. In the meantime, they will be in action nearer home, diving in a competition at the Quays on October 2.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.